Abstract
Limestone flour is used in a variety of industrial sectors such as power and heat generation, glass-making, paper-making, the construction industry and construction materials manufacturing, the production of agriculture, plastics and rubber goods, as well as coal mining, and environmental protection. This paper aims to characterize and interpret the limestone flour supply and demand trends in the main applications in Poland in the last decade. In order to track the changes of domestic consumption for this commodity, its major users have been surveyed along with analyses of data from the Statistics Poland (GUS). The results showed that during 2009–2018 the coal-fired power plants became the biggest customer of limestone flour utilized as a sorbent in the wet flue gas desulfurization method (FGD). This method has been implemented in the vast majority of Polish power plants. It is estimated that in the last decade the total annual production capacity of limestone flour at the milling plants in Poland increased by 1.5 million tons, to around 6.0 million tons. In the forthcoming years, this is expected to continue to increase despite EU restrictions on fossil fuel use (especially hard coal and lignite). Other promising areas of future growth are: for limestone flour of medium quality—the construction materials manufacturing and the construction industry itself, for limestone flour of the highest quality—the glass industry, while for fine-grained limestone flour of high-quality—the plastics and rubber industries. In terms of resource security, it is worth noting that Poland is a country rich in limestone deposits. However, only some of them, that is, limestone rock varieties of the Jurassic and Devonian ages from the Kielce vicinity in central Poland are suitable for the production of high-quality limestone flour for the needs of the mentioned industries. The paper analyses the potential of the limestone flour production from the available limestone rock deposits with respect to the current and future needs of the domestic market in Poland.
Highlights
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of calcium carbonate (CaCO3 ), usually in the form of calcite or aragonite
For the analysis of the resource base of limestone deposits in Poland and its use, the most important sources of information which were examined including annual publications referring to the mineral resource base in Poland [13,14,15], reviews of this resources base [1,16], the previous analyses of the limestone raw materials market in Poland [17], as well as the official data published by the Statistics
Consumption figures for the non-respondents in the power industry were deduced from their actual energy production and other information, that is, the parameters of the flue gas desulfurization method (FGD) installations operating in these plants as well as prior available data on their sorbent consumption
Summary
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of calcium carbonate (CaCO3 ), usually in the form of calcite or aragonite. It may contain considerable amounts of magnesium carbonate (dolomite CaMg[CO3 ]2 ). A peculiar variety of limestone rock, owing both to its genesis as well as properties and uses, is chalk [1,2]. Limestone is a rock with an enormous diversity of uses. Some additional and important uses of limestone include dimension stone for use in construction and in architecture, roofing granules applied as a weather and heat-resistant coating on asphalt-impregnated roofing, flux stone in smelting and other metal refining processes, as well as the Resources 2020, 9, 118; doi:10.3390/resources9100118 www.mdpi.com/journal/resources
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