CEMENT MAKING PROCESS

The process of making cement is a continuous or semi continuous process. It is made up of some steps; which starts from the raw material extraction to the production and delivery. It all starts from the limestone quarry.

RAW MATERIAL.
The raw material is extracted from rock mines. The raw materials include limestone, high marl, clay and low marl. The main raw materials used in cement manufacturing process are limestone, sand, shale, clay, and iron ore. The main material, limestone, is usually mined on site while the other minor materials may be mined either on site or in nearby quarries.

PREPARATION OF RAW MATERIAL, STORAGE & DISTRIBUTION.

The preparation of limestone starts from the mining which has to do with some drilling and blasting techniques. Blasting produces some sizes of about 1.5 metres in diameter to some millimeters in diameter. After blasting, the limestone is loaded on to 50ton capacity trucks, and then the trucks transport the limestone to the cement plant which is nearby. At the plant, the trucks limestone is dropped in to the primary crusher. The crusher reduces it to very small sizes, and while doing that water is sprayed to keep the dust from billowing out. After, a conveyor transports the rock in to secondary crusher which reduces them again. The rocks with high calcium carbonate and the ones with low calcium carbonate are crushed separately. They are then mixed depending on the type of cement that is been made. A tripper then makes piles of the required proportion, which is called the raw mix. The raw mix is then taken to a grinding machine called the rolling mill. Here the other minerals are added, depending on what minerals are already in our raw material. E.g. iron ore, and silica. After the addition, the powder is put in to the pre-heater, with a temperature at entrance of about 80deg Celsius. After like 10 seconds it gets 10 times hotter. Now the bonding

begins, so that when it is done and water is added, it gets hard. In the pre heater, there is a flash cousoner which removes 95% of carbon dioxide from the powder through a chemical reaction in about 5seconds. This isolates the lime, which as we know is the most important element in cement. From here the powder moves to the rotary kiln which is a huge cylindrical furnace. The kiln is set an angle so that the powder moves from top to bottom in a distance of 49meters. The kiln rotates about two turns a minute so that we ensure that it rotates at the right speed. The burner below the furnace reaches about 1600deg to 1700 deg Celsius. As the powder passes above the burner, it fuses in to pieces about the size of marble, called clinker. As the clinker leaves the kiln, large fan cools it down to about 60deg to 80deg Celsius. The cement should be cooled quickly in order to have quality cement. From the clinker, the cement is the taken to the storage area. The last stage is the finish grinding: where gypsum is added depending on the cement type been made. Gypsum delays the cements setting time so it can be worked for 2hrs before hardening. Next is the ball mills, which contain about 150ton of them. It is a larger mill. The balls rotate and grind the clinker and gypsum into a fine powder. They are the stored in silos for distribution.