All you need to know about cement

Posted by pooja late on September 11th, 2019

Cement is a chemical combination of calcium, silicon, aluminum, iron, and other ingredients. Some of the other raw materials for cement preparation include limestone, clay or shale. Cement is the basic ingredient for any building to be strong. When it is mixed with water, it binds with sand and rock to harden.

Cement plant

Cement plant is the place where a large amount of cement is being prepared for commercial purpose.

The manufacturing procedure of cement:

 There is a certain procedure to manufacture cement in a cement plant which is briefed in this module.

·         The raw materials like calcium, silicon, aluminum, limestone, and clay are extracted and crushed to a very fine powder. The crushing of raw materials includes various stages. In the first level of crushing, the raw materials are crushed up to 6 inches. The second level of crushing involves the crushing of raw materials up to 3 inches.

·         After crushing, they are blended to the right proportions. The blended raw material is called the ‘raw feed’ or the ‘kiln feed’. They are grounded with iron ore or fly ash.

·         The blended raw material is then directed to a rotating kiln. The rotating kiln is up to a 200-meter long tube which is cold at one end and hot at the other end. The blended raw material is heated in the rotating kiln up to 1400 to 1500 degrees of Celsius. The blended raw material comes out from the kiln after the process of heating as ‘clinker’. The clinker is composed of rounded nodules between 1 mm to 25 mm across.

·         The clinker is allowed to cool down using various types of coolers after coming out from the kiln. It is either kept in a local clinker store or it is passed directly to the cement mill.

·         The cement mill grinds the clinker into a very fine powder. A small amount of gypsum in the form of calcium sulfate and limestone are added to the clinker.

·         The addition of gypsum and limestone are to control the setting properties of the cement when water is added.

·         The resultant cement is ready for transportation for various construction projects.

Almost all the cement plan follows the same procedure. The manufacturing of cement in cement plants is a dry process. But there are a few other cement plants that use a wet process to prepare the cement. In the wet process, the blended raw materials are mixed with water before feeding them into the rotating kiln.

Cement Company

The cement companies either buy the cement from the manufacturers or they prepare their product. The cement company distributes the cement to the local dealers or construction firms. The cement plant fixes the cement price based on the availability of the raw materials. Cement is easy to work with, versatile, durable and economical. Basic precautions are to be taken by the workers in the cement plant to be safe. Before starting the work, one must make sure that all the precautions are taken. Protect your head and your eyes wearing using suitable properties to avoid any kind of harm.