The project report includes Present Market Position and Expected Future Demand, Market Size, Statistics, Trends, SWOT Analysis and Forecasts. Report provides a comprehensive analysis from industry covering detailed reporting and evaluates the position of the industry by providing insights to the SWOT analysis of the industry.
Calcium carbonate, or CaCO3, comprises more than 4% of the earth’s crust and is found throughout the world. It’s most common natural forms are chalk, limestone, and marble, produced by the sedimentation of the shells of small fossilized snails, shellfish, and coral over millions of years. Although all three forms are identical in chemical terms, they differ in many other respects, including purity, whiteness, thickness and homogeneity. Calcium carbonate is one of the most useful and versatile materials known to man.
Molecular weight: 100.08 g/mol
Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks as the minerals calcite and aragonite (most notably as limestone, which is a type of sedimentary rock consisting mainly of calcite) and is the main component of pearls and the shells of marine organisms, snails, and eggs. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime and is created when calcium ions in hard water react with carbonate ions to create limescale. It is medicinally used as a calcium supplement or as an antacid, but excessive consumption can be hazardous and cause poor digestion.
Calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate causes a unique reaction with acids. Upon contact with an acid – no matter the strength – it produces carbon dioxide. This provides geologists with a reliable test to identify calcium carbonate. This same phenomenon is important to the formation of caves. Acidic rain water runs off and goes underground where it dissolves the calcium carbonate limestone. The calcium carbonate water runs down and eventually reaches an air-filled cavity underground where the carbon dioxide can be released. When it is released, the calcium carbonate crystallizes again. Stalactite and stalagmite formations are created when water containing calcium carbonate drips, leaving some mineral at the source of the drip at the roof of the cave and some where it falls. This is an extremely long process, and often takes place over many thousands of years.
The vast majority of calcium carbonate used in industry is extracted by mining or quarrying. Pure calcium carbonate (such as for food or pharmaceutical use), can be produced from a pure quarried source (usually marble).
Alternatively, calcium carbonate is prepared from calcium oxide. Water is added to give calcium hydroxide then carbon dioxide is passed through this solution to precipitate the desired calcium carbonate, referred to in the industry as precipitated calcium carbonate.
A study of calcium carbonate provides important lessons about the history of the earth, since chalk, limestone and marble trace their origin to shallow water. Thus, observation that large amounts of chalk deposits of the same age are found on many continents led to the discovery that there existed a period in which there was shallow water world-wide where shelled organisms thrived. Some offer this as proof for the Biblical flood. Nature returns the favor as calcium carbonate solutions from current deposits provide living organisms today with the material they need to grow their protective shells and skeletons. Eggshells, for example, are composed of approximately 95% calcium carbonate.
Calcium carbonate particles have been used in the plastics industry for many years. The original purpose of adding ground calcium carbonate (GCC) particles as filler material for plastics was to reduce material costs. With the development of precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) particles, which are smaller than GCC particles, many more industrial applications for this type of nanocomposite have emerged. Many recent studies have shown that PCC nanoparticles can be used as fillers not only to reduce the cost of materials but also to improve the mechanical properties of the polymers. The purpose of this paper is to review the uses of PCC particles in polymer nanocomposites and the toughening mechanisms of the nanocomposite materials.
Precipitated Calcium Carbonate (PCC) is known as purified, refined or synthetic calciumcarbonate. It has the same chemical formula as other types of calcium carbonate, such as limestone, marble and chalk: CaCO3. The calcium, carbon and oxygen atoms canarrange themselves in three different ways, to form three different calcium carbonateminerals. The most common arrangement for both precipitated and ground calcium carbonates is the hexagonal form known as calcite. A number of different calcite crystal forms are possible: Scalenohedral, Rhombohedral and Prismatic. Less common is Aragonite, which has a discrete or clustered needle orthorhombic crystal structure.
