P.

Pradeep Kumar 1

Manufacturing Of Portland
Cement with Chart & Description

P.Pradeep Kumar 2

The production of portland cement begins with the quarrying of

limestone, CaCO3. Huge crushers break the blasted limestone
into small pieces. The crushed limestone is then mixed
with clay (or shale), sand, and iron ore and ground together to
form a homogeneous powder. However, this powder is
microscopically heterogeneous. (See flowchart.)
The mixture is heated in kilns that are long rotating steel
cylinders on an incline. The kilns may be up to 6 meters in
diameter and 180 meters in length. The mixture of raw
materials enters at the high end of the cylinder and slowly
moves along the length of the kiln due to the constant rotation
and inclination. At the low end of the kiln, a fuel is injected and
burned, thus providing the heat necessary to make the
materials react.
It can take up to 2 hours for the mixture to pass through the
kiln, depending upon the length of the cylinder.
As the mixture moves down the cylinder, it progresses
through four stages of transformation. Initially, any free water
in the powder is lost by evaporation. Next, decomposition
occurs from the loss of bound water and carbon dioxide. This is
called calcination. The third stage is called clinkering. During
this stage, the calcium silicates are formed. The final stage is
the cooling stage.

The marble-sized pieces produced by the kiln are referred to as

clinker. Clinker is actually a mixture of four compounds which
will be discussed later. The clinker is cooled, ground, and mixed
with a small amount of gypsum (which regulates setting) to
produce the general-purpose portland cement.