Hydrated Lime Mineral also known as Calcium Hydroxide, is an inorganic compound which is formed when Calcium Oxide is combined with water and is used in tanning and agriculture. Hydrated lime is also used in the treatment of drinking water. Hydrated Lime is used as Industrial Raw Materials with other industrial raw material products such as Silica Flour, Limestone, Aggregate, Quicklime, Talc, Volcanic Rock and Abrasives.
Hydrated lime is essential to the production of sugar from both sugar cane and sugar beets. It is also used to purify sugar from other sources, such as maple or sorghum, although these are produced in much smaller quantities. Lime also serves a myriad of uses in the food industry. Alkali plants with access to natural soda ash use the “lime-soda process” to manufacture caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). Sodium carbonate (soda ash) reacts with lime slurry to form caustic soda and precipitated calcium carbonate as co-products. Calcium carbide, the oldest source of acetylene, is formed by mixing quicklime and coke. Lime is used in the two major processes to manufacture magnesia (magnesium oxides): the seawater process and production from brines. Calcium hypochlorite bleaches are produced by reacting lime with chlorine. Lime can be combined with certain additives to produce other metals and is also a key ingredient in mortar and plaster in lime slurry form. As an additive in asphalt, lime improves its cohesion, reduces stripping, and retards the aging process.
Besides being a significant flocculant in water and sewage treatment, hydrated lime is also used in the preparation of ammonia gas, and is used in the paper industry. Aqueous solutions of hydrated lime are called limewater; medium strength bases that react with acids that can attack some metals such as aluminum while protecting other metals from corrosion such as iron and steel by passivation of their surfaces. Hydrated lime adopts a polymeric structure, as do all metal hydroxides. It is produced commercially by treating lime with water.
