Design, Construction and Testing of a wood-fired mini lime Plant

Abstract

Due to the rural based nature of the Limestone deposit in Nigeria, a wood fired lime kiln was designed and constructed with local refractory bricks to be used in a rural setting. The bricks were produced from a mixture of kaolin and sawdust. They were allowed to dry in the sun for three days and then fired ata temperature of 1000C for five hours. Experiment carried out on the calcination of limestone to lime in the kiln shows that limestone of between 3.00/5.00mm sizes cacinen faster due to quicker heating up and faster escape of carbon dioxide from the limestone. Duration of firing greatly affected the lime yield. The average yield is 52.17%, while the percentage of CaO in the lime is 99.7% which indicate a very high degree of calcination to lime from limestone.