CHAPTER NO: 3 LIME AND LIME POZOLANA CEMENTS

3.1 INTRODUCTION
Engineers and the lay public often have the impression that use of lime in
building construction is a retrograde step and that it can never compete with a modem
material like Portland cement. This impression is perhaps correct as long as one is
thinking of concretes with strengths in excess of 15.0 MPa. However, it must be
observed that nearly half the cement in a building is used for low strength applications
like plasters and mortars where the strength requirement is often as low as 3.0 MPa.
Portland cement is certainly not the best material if one looks at the requirements of a
mortar that it should be preferably slow setting and have high level of plasticity and
flow. Mortars are prepared in Western countries by invariably mixing cement and lime
or cement and pulverized calcium carbonate. Although Bureau of Indian Standards
includes mixing of cement and lime in mortars, it is never used in practice due to the
inherent prejudice against lime.
It is necessary here to emphasize that addition of lime to cement mortars, slows
down the initial setting of cement. Such mortars can be used effectively over a much
longer time after addition of water. Contact between brick and mortar and the bonding
of brick and mortar are very much improved by the addition of lime. It is hence
necessary to recognize the inherent value of lime in the preparation of building
mortars.

3.2 THE RAW MATERIALS

3.2.1 Lime Stone
One of the basic raw materials for all lime based mortars is lime stone. Lime
stone is essentially calcium carbonate in nature, Calcium being one of the fairly
abundant metals on earth. Natural lime stone is one of the purer forms of calcium
carbonate occurring in nature.

Calcium carbonate is mildly soluble in water and can sometimes be leached out
by water and ultimately deposited with clay as an impurity in the form of Kankar
lime stone. There is also an organic source of lime stone in the form of shell lime
which is usually available in Coastal areas. All the three sources of lime stone are used
for building purposes. The Kankar variety of lime stone usually displays hydraulic
properties after burning. The requirements for the use of lime for building purposes
may be obtained from a number of Codes/specifications drawn u by the Bureau of
Indian Standards. These may be briefly listed as.
Two types of mortars can be prepared by using lime namely: lime-mortar and
lime-pozzolana mortar. Again lime mortars are of two kinds fat lime mortar and
hydraulic mortar. When the lime stone is of high level of purity the resulting lime is
fat lime and the fat lime when mixed the sand leads to fat lime mortar. This type of
mortar does not need moisture for setting; it sets by absorbing CO2 from the
atmosphere. When the lime stone has clay like impurities, the burning process leads to
hydraulic lime which is actually a mixture of calcium oxide and burnt clay. This type
of lime sets in the presence of moisture and the calcium hydroxide reacts with the
amorphous silica and alumina present in burnt clay. In this case, the lime-sand mixture
has to be cured by keeping it moist for atleast 28 days. In general, hydraulic lime
mortars have better strength than fat lime mortars.
The burning of lime stone to produce quick lime (CaO) is generally carried out
in vertical shaft kilns using either fire wood or coal as fuel. Temperatures of the order
of 900-1000o C are needed to release CO2 from lime stone. The yield of quick lime
can be calculated from the known atomic weights of the elements.
Thus 100 kg of lime stone will yield 56kg of CaO. Again when quick lime is
slaked, 56kg of CaO will give rise to 74kg of Ca(OH) 2. Thus a of lime stone, when
burnt will give 740 kg of Ca(OH)2, if there are impurities no impurities. The
proportion would be less, if there are impurities in lime. Figure 3.1 shows lime kiln
design for small scale rural applications. The height and diameter of the kiln can be

adjusted to 500 kg to 1 ton limestone. The 500 kg kiln will need about 45% fire wood
by weight while the 1 ton one will need about 35% fire wood by weight. The figure
also shows the manner in which the fire wood and stone are to be stacked in alternate
layers. The process of burning is started by igniting the lower most layer of fire wood
from below. Once fire wood layer catches fire, the openings at the base are to be
closed leaving 2.5 cm dia holes for air entry. The half ton plant will have three holes
while the one ton plant will have four holes. These holes will control the rate of wood
burning and will also prevent entry of excess air. It is to be noted that the kiln must
have steel rings from bottom to top to prevent cracking of the kiln due to the heat.
After the completion of the burning the quick lime (CaO) can be discharged by
opening the temporarily closed hole at the base. The quick lime may now be slaked
and the slaked lime stored in suitable containers or bags.

3.2.2 Pozzolana
Pozzolana is a material which consists essentially of amorphous silica or a
mixture of amorphous silica and alumina. This is not cementitious by itself, but forms
cementitious compounds when it combines with calcium hydroxide at ambient
temperature in the presence of moisture. A mixture of finely ground calcium
hydroxide and pozzolana is hence known as a lime-pozzolana cement.
There are many ways in which pozzolana can be produced. The following
sources of pozzolana are commonly used:
1. Powdered burnt clay (commonly known as Surkhi in India).
2. Fly ash.
3. Rice Husk ash.
Among these, powdered burnt clay can be made either by artificially burning
clay in a kiln or by selecting wastes of burnt clay materials like bricks, tiles and
pottery. When clay is burnt in a kiln for the purpose of making pozzolana, it is
desirable to select a soil with a high proportion of clay. If the clay occurs along with
large amounts of sand, the sand may be removed by sieving to obtain high clay soil.
This is necessary since sand is a diluent and does not react with lime in the manner in

which pozzolana does. The high clay soil may now be made into thin briquettes. The
wet clay may be spread on level ground to a thickness of 2.5 cms and then sliced into
thin cakes of size 10 cms x 10 cms x 2.5 cms. These cakes may now be dried and then
charged into the kiln with alternate layers of fire wood. Usually the fire wood used
could be around 10% of the weight of the clay. With this amount of fire wood as
temperature of about 700o C can be expected. The burnt clay may now be pulverized
to about 90 size particles. Ball mills are usually used for this purpose. This pozzolana
can be stored in bags indefinitely without any loss of its reactivity.
Fly ash as pozzolana is usually obtained from thermal power stations which use
pulverized coal as the fuel. The exceeding fine particles of burnt coal, which are
collected in electrostatic precipitators, are known as fly ash. They contain significant
amounts of amorphous silica and alumina. Thermal power plants also produce
significant amounts of coal ash in the form of pond ash and bottom ash. These types of
ashes are generally not good as pozzolana. Fly ash is a waste product and ay be
considered as a zero thermal energy material, unlike burnt clay which needs specific
energy inputs.
Rice husk ash is a natural source of silica. Normally rice husk contains about
20% silica and the rest of it is combustible material. This silica is amorphous and if
the husk id burnt under controlled conditions a highly pozzolanic ash can be produced.
A number of studies have been carried out by various authors on different ways of
producing reactive silica from rice husk (1,2,3,4). The techniques developed by
Yogananda, Jagadish and Kumar and others (2,3) are discussed here. Figures 3.2 and
3.3 show two typical arrangements for burning rice husk. In the first version, an
annular honey comb brick structure is erected and a closely spaced mesh is placed at a
height of 20 cms above the ground. Alternate layers of rice husk and clay are palced in
the kiln such that the husk is about 30 to 40% by weight pf the clay. The width of the
clay layer should be about 15 cms less than the width of husk to permit easy air
movement through the bed of husk. The stack is now set fire to from below. The entire

mass burns out over one or two days. The end product is a mixture of burnt clay and
rice husk ash. This may be ground in a ball mill to obtain fine pozzolana.
In the second technique, kapur et al. developed what is known as the tube in
basket burner. It has an annular mesh enclosure in which rice husk is stacked and set
fire to from below. The entire mass burns over several hours with central opening
acting as a chimney. Copper tube carrying water may be inserted in the bed of husk to
generate hot water from the burning husk. This technique also leads to good quality
pozzolana.
The first version leads to what may be called as combination pozzolana, which
is a mixture of burnt clay and rice husk ash. This technique has the advantage of
producing a relatively larger quantity of pozzolana. It must be noted that the national
availability of rice husk ash is around 2.0 million tones while the cement consumption
is 100 million tons. By adding burnt clay about 10 million tons of combination
pozzolana can be generated in the country.

3.3 THE PROCESS

3.3.1 Lime- Pozzolana Cement
An intimate mixture of lime and pozzolana will set in the presence of water,
forming calcium silicate and calcium aluminate compounds. In the traditional limesurkhi mortar, slaked lime and brick powder used to be mixed and ground in the
presence of moisture in bullock driven mortar mills. The ground moist mixture is then
directly used in construction. In the modern context, bullock driven mortar mills are
not common and power driven pan mills can be used to grind the mortar. Unlike
Portland cement, which is already a complete cementitious product, lime pozzolana
cement needs an additional step of mixing lime and pozzolana, the efficacy of the lime
pozzolana cements depends on the intimacy of the mixing of lime and pozzolana.

Experiments by Yogananda (4) showed that by intergrinding lime and pozzolana

powders for about an hour, the strength of lime-pozzolana sand mortars can be
increased to double the value.
The traditional process of lime surkhi mortar involved wet grinding of lime and
surkhi mixture. According to the studies made at Karnataka Engineering Research
Station, KR. Sagar Dam site, it was found that the mortar strength reaches a maximum
when the duration of grinding is 35 minutes (5). Grinding for longer or shorter
durations leads to lower strengths. However, in the context of modern construction
wet grinding may be considered to be an inconvenient procedure, since this needs
deployment of diesel engine or electrical energy at the site for mortar mixing. It would
be ideal if wet grinding can be avoided.
Two alternative techniques have been explored at the Department of Civil
Engineering, Indian Institute of Science (4). These techniques may be listed as
(a) Dry blending of lime and pozzolana and
(b) Wet blending of lime and pozzolana
These techniques may now be discussed in detail.
(a) Dry Blending of Lime and Pozzolana
In this technique, the slaked lime and pozzolana should be separately processed
as dry powders. The pozzolana may be dry ground to fineness of 90. The two
powders may now be blended in a ball mill for a duration of about 1 hour. In this
technique, the size reduction of lime and pozzolana is carried out first and mixing the
two is carried out subsequently. This is useful since a coarse pozzolana cannot be
satisfactorily ground if it is initially mixed with lime powder. This mixture is then
added to sand and after thorough dry mixing, water is added to complete the
preparation of mortar. This procedure also means that the dry mixture of lime and
pozzolana may have to be stored in bags. This also leads to the question of shelf life of
lime-pozzolana mixture. Studies were made by Yogananda (4) and H.R. Phalanetra et
al. (6) on this aspect. It was found that lime pozzolana mixtures will loose strength

rapidly on storage. Storage in gunny or woven LDPE bags is especially bad for shelf
life. When stored in such bags, the 21 day strength shows a 60% reduction after 45
days of storage. However, when stored in impervious plastics or paper bags the
strength fall is about 35% after 45 days of storage. Apparently, the residual moisture
present in the lime or pozzolana will initiate the reaction between the two even when
stored in dry conditions. Air absorption in the case of bags with small pores will
worsen the situation. It is hence important to note that the blended dry mixture of lime
and pozzolana should not be stored for more than 14 days if the strength reduction is
to be less than 10%. The poor shelf life of lime-pozzolana mixture is probably one
reason why this approach to alternative cements has not succeeded.
(b) Wet Blending of Lime and Pozzolana
In this approach, the pozzolana has to be produced and ground to 90 fineness
and stored in gunny or woven LDPE bags. The pozzolana can be stored indefinitely.
Slaked lime may be freshly produced by slaking quick lime at the site. The slaked
lime and the well ground pozzolana may now be mixed in a simple drum or hand
operated concrete mixer in the presence of water. This approach obviates the need to
produce dry slaked lime powder which can be problematic. The slaked lime is
generally in a finely divided form and the blending of ground pozzolana is facilitated
by the presence of moisture. After blending the two for about 20 minutes, the limepozzolana slurry may now be poured over sand and mixed thoroughly to get the limepozzolana mortar.

3.4 PROPERTIES AND USES

3.4.1 Strength of Mortars with Burnt Clay and Combination Pozzolana
A number of studies were carried out to determine the typical strengths of limepozzolana mortars using burnt clay and combination pozzolana (4, 6). Typical results
of burnt clay pozzolana based mortars are shown ii Table 3.1. The listed proportion by
indicate proportion by weight. It can be seen that the 28 day strengths of most of the
mortars are above the B.I.S. Codal requirement of 3.0 MPa, It must, however, be

noted that the bulk density of lime-burnt clay mixture is quite low and hence the
mortar proportions by volume are quite rich when compared to the usual cement
mortar proportions. This means that greater proportion of lime-pozzolana cement has
to be used to achieve satisfactory mortar strengths.
The typical strengths of lime-combination pozzolana mortars are shown in
Table 3.2. Here items 1 and 2 represent combination pozzolana wherein rice husk ash
and burnt clay are separately produced and blended. Items 3 to 8 represent the case
when clay is burnt using rice husk as fuel. The proportion of clay and rice husk is
indicated to help understand the clay-rice husk ash ratio. It can be seen that when the
burnt clay and rice husk ash are separately produced adequate rice husk ash can be
added to provide good strengths. In fact the mortars are so strong that the sand content
has to be increased to provide usual mortar strength. When rice husk is used to burn
the clay, the process becomes more economical but the strengths are moderate. It must
be noted, however, that 6 month strengths are substantially high. A clay-rice husk ratio
of 1:0.6 is ideal from the point of view of strength and economy.

3.4.2 Fly Ash as Pozzolona

As mentioned earlier, fly ash is collected from electrostatic precipitators in
thermal power stations which use pulverized coal as the fuel. When exceedingly fine
coal particles are burnt, the residence times are low and the ash containing silica and
alumina is quite amorphous. This ash, which is very fine in terms of particle size, is
hence quite reactive and is an excellent pozzolana. There are also types of fly ash
which are coarse and not very reactive. The grain size distributions of two samples of
fly ash from Raichur and Neyveli are shown in Figure 3.4. It can be seen that the
Raichur fly ash is very fine and 30% of the particles are finer than 2. The Neyveli
ash is rather coarse and most of the particles are coarser than 25.
The characteristics of fly ash as pozzolana were studied using these two
samples and making lime pozzolana mortar cubes of 5 cm size. The lime-fly ash
mixtures were interground in a ball mill. Accelerating additives like plaster-of-paris,
gypsum or anhydrite were sometimes added. Table 3.3 shows the results for lime-fly

ash-sand proportions of 1:2:9 and 1:1.5:7.5. The table shows that use of plaster- ofparis to the tune of 5 to 10% of the weight of lime+fly ash is beneficial in increasing
the short term strength and is thus acting as an accelerator. The table clearly shows
that lime-fly ash mortars are eminently suitable for construction with the 180 day
strengths in excess of 10.0 MPa.
One could use leaner mortars because of the high strength of 1:3 cement-sand
proportion. Again the Raichur fly ash, with its fine particles is exceedingly good as
pozzolana while Neyveli fly ash is very much inferior. It could perhaps be used in
1:1.5:7.5 proportion without adding any accelerator. It may also be observed that
adding plaster-of- paris to the tune of 15% of the lime + fly ash weight is not that
beneficial.
Some tests were also made with the FALGY proportions recommended by the
FALGY group in Vishakapatnam. Table 3.3 shows the results of these tests. It is again
clear that using lime-fly ash proportion of 1:3 or more may not be useful. Use of
higher proportions of plaster-of-paris is also not desirable, since many of these tests
showed a fall in strength after 6 months.

3.5 SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS

Production of pozzolana and lime- pozzolana cements lends itself ideally to
small scale production in rural/semi-urban areas. Very often, small lime deposits not
big enough for Portland cement production can be locally exploited. Depending on the
availability of resources, burnt clay, fly ash, rice-husk ash and rice-husk ash + burnt
clay can be used as pozzolana. Fly ash will probably be the most cost effective when
procured at short distances.
In a typical small scale unit, the following facilities may be needed:
1. Lime kiln to produce 1 ton of Ca(OH)2
2. Pozzolana kiln to burn 2 tons of clay

3. Ball mill 5 H.P. or vibratory mill

4. Storage tank for Ca(OH)2 and pozzolana
5. A small building to house ball mill
6. Source of water
7. About acre of land.
The total investment could be about 2.0 lakhs excluding the cost of land. One can
expect a monthly production of 8 tons of Ca(OH) 2 and 16 tons of pozzolana. Lime
could be priced at about Rs. 2.50 per kg and pozzolana at Rs. 1.0 per kg. This means
that a kg of lime-pozzolana (1:2 proportion) will cost about Rs. 1.50. The value of
monthly production of such an out fit would be about Re. 36,000.00. A typical plant
may work for about 8 months in a year.
Marketing such an alternative cement could indeed be a problem since people are
sold on the idea of Portland cement. However, the tendency of cement price to rise
rapidly due to increasing costs of energy, raw materials and transportation may offer a
competitive advantage for lime-pozzolana. There is however a need to disseminate
information on the desirable properties of lime-pozzolana. One of the earlier attempts
made by the authors in the nineties showed that with adequate demonstration people
in rural areas will buy such a cement. As of today a satisfactory price for limepozzolana mixture could be about Rs. 2.00 per kg giving a Re. 0.50 return per kg. A
typical 30 kg bag can be sold for Rs. 65.00.
It is not that one need to promote only lime-pozzolana mixture. It is often possible
to use cement-pozzolana mixtures for mortars leading to cost advantages. A typical
volume proportion of 1:0.5:8 (cement:pozzolana:sand) could offer good quality mortar
at very competitive price.
Use of pozzolana is most advantageous in building mortars and there is a need for
a campaign to show that mortars need a different type of cement.