Author(s)

Mathilde Schnebelen^1,2*, Myriam Ricaud³, Alexandra Jakob², Didier Sy², Edouard Plasari¹, Hervé Muhr¹

¹Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés, Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France.
²Solvay Spécialités France, Salin de Giraud, France.
³Groupe Dynamique des Phases condensées, Université des Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc de Montpellier 2, Montpellier, France.

The reaction studied in this work is the synthesis of nanometric size calcium carbonate by carbonation of a suspension of lime, which represents the most common industrial route. The carbonation was proceeded in a pilot batch reactor. This article presents a method for the determination of nucleation and crystal growth rates of calcium carbonate by following two macroscopic parameters: the mass production rate by precipitation and the specific surface area. The results give a constant nucleation rate around 4 × 10¹⁵m^-3 ·s^-1 and a decreasing crystal growth rate between 0.2 and 2 × 10^-10 m·s^-1. It also provides the main characteristics of the monoparticle size distributions (i.e. the mean particle sizes and in situ coefficient of variation) in the agglomerates, which cannot be obtained by other known methods. For the carbonation carried out in this work, the mean mass particle size at the end of the reaction is about 300 nm and the coefficient of variation of 0.28 indicates a narrow particle size distribution of the monoparticles.

Lime carbonation, Crystal growth rate, Nucleation rate, Calcium carbonate

Schnebelen, M. , Ricaud, M. , Jakob, A. , Sy, D. , Plasari, E. and Muhr, H. (2015) Determination of Crystallization Kinetics and Size Distribution Parameters of Agglomerated Calcium Carbonate Nanoparticles during the Carbonation of a Suspension of Lime. Crystal Structure Theory and Applications, 4, 16-27. doi: 10.4236/csta.2015.42003.