What Is A Clinker And What Are The Types Of Clinker
Clinker is produced in the burning stage when the cement is being produced. Clinker works as a binder in many cement products. It is dark grey in color and produced when limestone and clay are heated to the point of liquefaction. How is cement produced? Clinker and gypsum when added together and grounded finely, it produces cement. The main four components of clinker are Alite, Belite, Aluminate, and Ferrite. Other substances like salt phases (combination of potassium, sodium, and calcium) and low-temperature phases (several transitional chemical species like spurrite, ternesite, etc.) may be present in cement in small amounts.The most prevalent type of clinker produces Portland cement and its blends. The type of clinker usually depends on the kind of cement for which you are producing the clinker. Apart from Portland cement blends, mentioned below are the different kinds of cement clinkers:
Sulfate Resistant Clinker
These clinkers contain 5% belite, 76% alite and 2% tricalcium aluminate. The production of these clinkers has decreased over time because they are readily available when you use granulated blast furnace slag during the production of cement.
Low Heat Clinker
They contain 54% belite, 29% alite, 15% tetra calcium aluminoferrite and 2% tricalcium aluminate. They include a minimal amount of free lime in them. The reason they are no longer produced is that the ordinary clinker made from granulated blast furnace slag has amazing low heat properties.
White Clinker
The composition of white clinker may differ widely. They help in producing white cement used for artistic purposes in construction. Majority of the white cement produced goes into factory applications.
Low-Alkali Clinker
Reducing the content of alkali in clinker is easy and done by either installing an ‘alkali bleed ‘or by replacing the raw-mix of alumina with another component.The second method will get you a more expensive material from a source that is more distant.
How Can You Use Clinkers?
Clinker when combined with additives and grounded into fine powder, works as a perfect binder in cement products. To achieve certain properties in the produced cement, different substances are added to the clinker. The primary use of clinker is to produce cement as you can store it for several months even in a dry condition without any noticeable deterioration. These are also traded internationally like Iran Clinker Export. Various cement manufacturers purchase clinker for their cement plants that are in areas where raw materials are unavailable or scarce.
Clinker and cement is not the same thing. Cement is as a binding material, whereas, clinker is used to produce cement. Clinker mostly depends on the composition of raw material, which means if the raw materials are not appropriate or not blended properly, the building and roads made from them will have poor strength.
