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    Free Silica

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    srinivasu67
    The document discusses how to determine the amount of free silica in ores that can impact cement production. Large quartz particles above 32um are difficult to grind and can get trapped in the kiln, leaving unreacted lime. Similarly, large calcite particles above 90um can also get trapped. The free lime level depends on quartz particles over 32um, calcite over 90um, the lime saturation factor, and silica ratio. Burnability tests can establish a mathematical relationship between these parameters and predict free lime levels.

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    Free Silica

    Uploaded by

    srinivasu67
    965 views1 page
    The document discusses how to determine the amount of free silica in ores that can impact cement production. Large quartz particles above 32um are difficult to grind and can get trapped in the kiln, leaving unreacted lime. Similarly, large calcite particles above 90um can also get trapped. The free lime level depends on quartz particles over 32um, calcite over 90um, the lime saturation factor, and silica ratio. Burnability tests can establish a mathematical relationship between these parameters and predict free lime levels.

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    FREE SILICA

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    The document discusses how to determine the amount of free silica in ores that can impact cement production. Large quartz particles above 32um are difficult to grind and can get trapped in the kiln, leaving unreacted lime. Similarly, large calcite particles above 90um can also get trapped. The free lime level depends on quartz particles over 32um, calcite over 90um, the lime saturation factor, and silica ratio. Burnability tests can establish a mathematical relationship between these parameters and predict free lime levels.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    965 views1 page

    Free Silica

    Uploaded by

    srinivasu67
    The document discusses how to determine the amount of free silica in ores that can impact cement production. Large quartz particles above 32um are difficult to grind and can get trapped in the kiln, leaving unreacted lime. Similarly, large calcite particles above 90um can also get trapped. The free lime level depends on quartz particles over 32um, calcite over 90um, the lime saturation factor, and silica ratio. Burnability tests can establish a mathematical relationship between these parameters and predict free lime levels.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
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    HOW TO DETERMINE FREE SILICA IN ORES. The 'Free silica' in question is quartz or other hard high-silica mineral.

    Since quartz is very hard it is much more difficult to grind than limestone and is th erefore concentrated mostly in the coarse fractions of the kiln feed. The quartz in clays is already very fine <~5um) and normally poses no problem, h owever the limestone component can sometimes contain thick (>1cm) seams of pure quartz which has been deposited over long periods of time in cracks in the limes tone by silica-rich ground waters. Such large quartz seams are very difficult to grind and the resultant particle s ize of quartz grains in the raw meal produced from such material is therefore in creased significantly. During reaction in the kiln, large quartz grains react at their surface with nea rby CaO grains to form C2S. In the burning zone, the reaction occurs by diffusio n of the CaO dissolved in the liquid phase. If the quartz particle is big enough a wall of C2S forms around the remaining quartz, isolating it from the liquid p hase and preventing any more diffusion of CaO. ie the reaction SiO2 + 2CaO -> C2 S becomes stalled at this point and, no matter how hard the clinker is burned, this free silica can never all react in time. This leaves two equivalents of unr eacted CaO lime behind which increases the free lime of the clinker. A similar situation occurs if the large quartz grains are just small enough to c ompletely react into C2S. The next step is for this C2S to react with further Ca O to form C3S. Again, if the C2S cluster resulting from a coarse quartz particle is large enough, a wall of C3S will form around the cluster preventing CaO diff usion through to the centre of the cluster. This results in three equivalents of free lime being left behind. Essentially the coarse quartz has substantially increased the burnability of the kiln feed. This situation cannot be detected in the chemical analysis of the ki ln feed which is normally performed at a cement plant. It must be determined by the analysis of critical size fractions of the kiln feed. Depending on kiln conditions/chemical targets/raw meal particle size distributio n and raw material mineralogy the point at which quartz and calcite grains are l ikely to become problematic will vary from plant to plant. The actual amount of unreacted lime remaining depends on the following drivers; Specific reaction area (the area of contact between the grains) Local oversaturation (grain size of individual minerals) Ambient conditions (pressure, temperature, and burning time) Diffusion coefficient of CaO through the liquid phase (composition of the liquid ph ase) Amount of liquid phase formed during burning Supply and demand of CaO If we assume that kiln conditions such as pressure, temperature and burning time can be kept relatively constant, the rest of these drivers can be condensed int o just four main parameters;Silica Ratio Lime Saturation Factor Amount of oversized quartz grains (>32um) Amount of oversized calcite grains. (>90um) Having measured these parameters and performed burnability tests on many differe nt raw meals, a mathematical relationship such as the one below can be obtained by regression analysis;Free Lime (burnability test) = w * Quartz(>32um) + x * Calcite(>90u) + y * LSF + z * SR - c The coefficients w,x,y,z and c will be slightly different for each plant and the critical size criteria for oversized quartz and calcite often vary from researc her to researcher. Some maintain that quartz >45um and calcite >125um are critic al.

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