Madras Cements is setting up a limestone beneficiation plant that will help it upgrade cement raw material resources and extend the life of limestone mines.

The company will install the first of the beneficiation plant at a cost of Rs 30 crore at Alathiyur in Tamil Nadu, where it has a 3 million tonnes-a-year cement plant.

Once the 400 tonnes-per-hour beneficiation unit is stabilised, the company will establish similar facilities at other plants, according to A.V. Dharmakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer, Madras Cements.

The company has a total annual capacity of about 13 million tonnes of cement production across five plants distributed across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Limestone is the principal raw material of cement. A key gauge of raw material quality is its silicon dioxide content, which can be around 11-14 per cent for cement grade limestone.

In low-grade limestone, the silicon dioxide content can go up to 30 per cent.

The low-grade material is either rejected or the company has to buy high-quality, sweetener grade of limestone with eight per cent silicon dioxide and blend it with cement grade and low grade limestone for use.

Significant quantities are involved with the Alathiyur plant using about 10,000 tonnes of limestone daily which comprise 6,800 tonnes of cement grade and 1,500 tonnes of low-grade raw material blended with 1,700 tonnes of sweetener.

Once the beneficiation plant is in place, the low-grade limestone will be processed to remove excess contaminant and upgraded with just 12.5 per cent silicon dioxide.

The cement plant will simply use equal quantities of beneficiated and high grade limestone.

The company will be able to avoid wastage of huge quantities of natural mineral resource and extend the life of the limestone quarry, Dharmakrishnan said.

balaji.ar@thehindu.co.in

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