A dry powder obtained by hydrating Quick Lime with enough water to satisfy its chemical affinity, forming a hydroxide due to its chemically combined water. ( Ca(OH)₂)

Lime is one of the earliest industrial commodities known to man, its production and uses have grown with the times, and it continues to be one of the essential building blocks of modem industry.

Lime for today's markets, must meet exacting chemical and physical specifications, high purity limestone is required, and processing of limestone into lime is tightly controlled to ensure quality products.

Lime is utilised by a wide range of industries for a myriad of uses. Lime is truly the versatile chemical for today's market. It is used in many of the products and materials everyone around the world use every day. It is extensively used as :

•	Construction Chemical
•	Industrial Chemical
•	Metallurgical Chemical
•	Environmental Chemical
•	Affordable Chemical
•	The Essential Chemical

Lime : T he Construction Chemical :

In construction, lime's traditional use is in mortar and plaster, because of its superior plasticity, workability and other qualities. Lime's dominant construction use today is in soil stabilization for roads, airfields, building foundations and earthen dams, where it upgrades low quality soils into usable base and sub base materials. It is also used as an additive in asphalt, in which it improves the cohesion of the asphalt, reduces "stripping "and retards the aging process. Dolomite lime is also used in the production of masonry mortar and stucco, and high calcium lime is used in the production of aerated autoclaved concrete. It is also used for the manufacturing of bricks.

Lime : T he Industrial Chemical :

In addition to the uses described above, lime is essential to many other industries. For example, the chemical industry uses lime to manufacture sodium alkalies, calcium carbide, calcium hypochlorite, citric acid, petrochemicals, phenolates, stearates, naphthenates, nitrates, caseinates, calcium phosphates, propylene glycol, glycerin, and many others. These chemicals, in turn, go into virtually every product made.

An important and growing use for lime is in the production of precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC), which is used in the production of paper, paint, ink, plastic, and rubber. The paper industry uses lime as a causticizing agent and for bleaching and, increasingly, for producing PCC use in the paper manufacturing process. Other key uses of lime include refractory, sugar refining, agricultural liming, glass making, and leather tanning.

Lime : T he Metallurgical Chemical :

The largest single use of lime is in steel manufacturing, where it serves as a flux for removing impurities (silica, phosphorus and sulfur) in refining steel. It is used both in traditional basic oxygen furnaces (BOF) and the newer electric arc furnaces, as well as in secondary refining. Lime for use in the steel industry, both high calcium and dolomite, must meet exacting specifications as to its physical and chemical properties. Without this high quality lime, steel production would be crippled. Lime is also essential to producing metals other than steel. Thus, lime is used to beneficiate copper ore, to make alumina and magnesia for use in aluminum and magnesium manufacture, to extract uranium, and to recover gold and silver.

Lime : T he Environmental Chemical :

As a product derived from the Earth, it is fitting that many of lime's uses also benefit the Earth. Indeed, the second leading use of lime is for environmental applications, involving air, drinking water, wastewater, and solid wastes. Industrial, utility and mining operations rely on lime to comply with a host of environmental regulations. Lime is used to treat industrial and mining wastewater, in which it adjusts the pH of acidic waste, removes phosphorus and nitrogen, and promotes clarification. A growing use of lime is in the treatment of stack gases from industrial facilities, power plants, medical waste incinerators and hazardous waste incinerators. Lime absorbs and neutralizes sulfur oxides from these gases, helping to prevent acid rain, and also reduces emissions of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury.

Lime is especially vital to organisations in meeting their environmental and public health responsibilities at a reasonable cost. These are follows :

•	lime is widely used for potable water softening and to remove impurities (such as lead) from drinking water.
•	it is a highly cost-effective method to treat sewage sludge.
•	stack gases from incinerators are treated with lime to remove sulfur dioxide, hydrogen chloride and other contaminants.

As National and global pollution control regulations become increasingly stringent, these applications of lime are sure to become even more important to our efforts to maintain a clean environment.

Lime : T he Affordable Chemical :

Lime is the only material that can perform so many functions at a reasonable cost. Indeed, lime is substantially less expensive than potential substitutes for virtually all of its applications. In most cases, lime could only be replaced, if at all, by highly expensive synthetic materials.

Acts as Substitutes: Limestone is a substitute for lime in many applications, such as agriculture, fluxing, and sulfur removal. Limestone contains less reactive material, and is slower to react, and may have other disadvantages compared with lime depending on the application. However, limestone is considerably less expensive than lime. Calcined gypsum is an alternative material in industrial plasters and mortars. Cement and limekiln dust and fly ash are potential substitutes for some construction uses of lime.

Lime : T he Essential Chemical :

The lime industry is essential to the National and Global economy. It provides jobs to workers, and represents a significant investment in land and equipment. ( The equipment required to produce lime is massive, heavy and complex, making the lime industry capital-intensive. ) Even more important, because lime is basic to the manufacture of steel and numerous other products, millions of jobs are dependent upon lime's continued availability. Furthermore, without lime, the cost of virtually all consumer goods would increase due to the use of more expensive alternatives to lime.