Explore the vast range of titles available.

Limestone flour is used in a variety of industrial sectors such as power and heat generation, glass-making, paper-making, the construction industry and construction materials manufacturing, the production of agriculture, plastics and rubber goods, as well as coal mining, and environmental protection. This paper aims to characterize and interpret the limestone flour supply and demand trends in the main applications in Poland in the last decade. In order to track the changes of domestic consumption for this commodity, its major users have been surveyed along with analyses of data from the Statistics Poland (GUS). The results showed that during 2009–2018 the coal-fired power plants became the biggest customer of limestone flour utilized as a sorbent in the wet flue gas desulfurization method (FGD). This method has been implemented in the vast majority of Polish power plants. It is estimated that in the last decade the total annual production capacity of limestone flour at the milling plants in Poland increased by 1.5 million tons, to around 6.0 million tons. In the forthcoming years, this is expected to continue to increase despite EU restrictions on fossil fuel use (especially hard coal and lignite). Other promising areas of future growth are: for limestone flour of medium quality—the construction materials manufacturing and the construction industry itself, for limestone flour of the highest quality—the glass industry, while for fine-grained limestone flour of high-quality—the plastics and rubber industries. In terms of resource security, it is worth noting that Poland is a country rich in limestone deposits. However, only some of them, that is, limestone rock varieties of the Jurassic and Devonian ages from the Kielce vicinity in central Poland are suitable for the production of high-quality limestone flour for the needs of the mentioned industries. The paper analyses the potential of the limestone flour production from the available limestone rock deposits with respect to the current and future needs of the domestic market in Poland.

Carbonation–calcination looping using CaO-based natural sorbents such as limestone is a promising technology for the capture of CO2 from fossil fuel-based power plants. In this study, the CO2 capture capacities of Buipe, Oterpkolu, and Nauli limestones from quarries in Ghana were measured in a laboratory-scale micro-fluidized bed reactor through multiple carbonation–calcination cycles. The changes in CO2 capture capacity and conversion with the number of cycles mostly correlated with the changes in the physico-chemical properties: Capture capacity dropped from >60% to <15% after 15 cycles and the surface area dropped to below 5 m2 g−1 from as much as 20 m2 g−1 (for the Oterkpolu). The pore volume of the Nauli limestone was essentially invariant with the number of cycles while it increased for the Buipe limestone, and initially increased and then dropped for the Oterpkolu limestone. This decrease was likely due to sintering and a reduction in the number of micropores. The unusual increase in pore volume after multiple cycles was due to the formation of mesopores with smaller pore diameters.

The results obtained by studying decarbonization of different samples of Estonian limestone and dolomite and the following sulphation or carbonation of calcined products to estimate their SO2 and CO2 binding ability were presented. Experiments were carried out with thermogravimetric equipment(Q-Derivatograph, MOM and Labsys™, SETARAM) – calcination of the samples in the atmosphere of air with the heating rate 10 K per minute using multiplate crucibles, the following sulphation or carbonation of the calcined products after cooling to the fixed temperature (temperature range 400–900°C) under isothermal conditions in the flow of air-SO2 or air-CO2 mixture. Chemical, X-ray, BET nitrogen dynamic desorption, etc. methods for the characterization of the initial samples, intermediate and final products were used.In addition, the possibilities of recurrent use of oil shale ashes taken from different technological points at operating thermal power plants (Estonian and Baltic TTPs, Estonia) as sorbents for SO2 binding from gaseous phase were studied, as well as the possibilities of activation of these ashes towards SO2 binding.The results of these studies confirmed the high reactivity of Estonian limestone and dolomite towards SO2 and CO2. Dependence of SO2 binding mechanism on the SO2 concentration has been established. Modelling of SO2 capture of dolomite and limestone was carried out to establish the kinetic parameters of these processes. The possibilities of activation of oil shale ashes and their effective recurrent use for binding SO2 and CO2 from gaseous phase were confirmed.