Geochemical modelling of raw limestone at lime & lime products, baling, Kedah.
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Date
2019-07
Authors
Muaz Bin Mahyudin
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Abstract
The study of geochemical distribution of raw limestone was conducted at limestone quarry which is owned by Lime & Lime Products Sdn Bhd (LLP), Baling, Kedah, Malaysia. Generally, limestone is composed of major chemical compound which is CaO and other impurities such as MgO, Mn3O4, SiO2, Fe2O3, Al2O3 and some other constituents. These chemical compositions play a major role in the production of good quality of hydrated lime and precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC). The previous borehole drilling exploration showed that the limestone was very high purity in term of chemical composition since the average value of CaO was 99%. However, there were problems regarding the presence of a high value of MgO and Mn3O4 in the borehole samples. 76 grab samples of limestone are collected at the quarry area and analyzed for their chemical characteristics. The result shows that there are 21 out of 76 samples are below 99% and 1 sample is found to be the lowest value of CaO which is 96.56%. There are 51 out of 76 samples tend to have high MgO value and few samples nearly to be considered as high dolomitic lime. Lastly, most of the samples give the low value of Mn3O4, SiO2, Fe2O3 and Al2O3. 3D geological modelling is designed to estimate the geochemical distribution of limestone at the quarry area. From the simulation, it shows most parts of the quarry contain a high percentage of CaO with an average value of 99% while MgO has found to be concentrated in the west part of the quarry. Besides, high value Mn3O4 can be found at the bottom of the quarry in the west part and the highest value of Mn3O4 can be defined at the top of the quarry in the east part.