Limestone Products
What cleans the smoke from a power plant?
Cleaning the air before it reaches the sky.
Dr. Lime Explains
A spray of limestone and water, inside the chimney.
Coal smoke carries sulphur dioxide. Left alone, it comes back down as acid rain.
The smoke is passed through a fine spray of limestone and water. The sulphur reacts with it and is captured as a solid. What leaves the chimney is far cleaner than what went in.
A well-run plant removes most of its sulphur this way.
Worth knowing
The captured sulphur does not become waste. It comes out as gypsum, the same material used to make plasterboard and added to cement. India's coal plants are being fitted with these systems now, and they will need a great deal of limestone to run them.
Source: Central Pollution Control Board.
