Lime is a well-known substance since antiquity which has multiple uses. It is known that lime was used in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids and various works during the Greek and the Roman Empire eras.
Lime (CaO; Quicklime) is produced out of the calcination at 900-1000 °C of the limestone containing calcium carbonate. Slaked lime, on the other hand, is the calcium hydroxide coming into being as a result of quicklime's reaction with water (Ca (OH)2).
Depending of the properties of the raw material, dolomitic lime containing magnesium and slaked dolomitic lime are also produced as well as high-calcium lime.
Lime's fields of use are too numerous to list. Lime is a chemical which has either direct or indirect contribution in almost every industrial product. In the industrial sector, it ranks the first in terms of the number of fields of use, and the fifth in terms of consumption amount. Approximately 5 million tones of lime are produced annually in Turkey (including the State Economic Enterprises and the private sector enterprises which meet their consumption costs on their own). The most lime is used in the construction sector with 2 million tones, which is followed by the metallurgy and chemical sectors. The environmental uses of lime which are quite common in Europe and the USA are also increasingly getting more common.
In our country, lime is produced in a technological diversity extending from simple bush and hillside kilns to modern computerized kilns which operate in compliance with the existing "best available technology" concept.