Calcium carbonate. From the cretaceous period into the 21 st Century / Карбонат кальция. Из мелового периода в 21-й век

Anyone who takes the trouble to look up all the entries that have been filed under "Calcium Carbonate" in a university library will be surprised - if not overwhelmed - by the enormous amount of literature that is concerned in one way or another with this subject. Most of the corresponding books and journals can be assigned to the realms of chemistry, but they also include technical, geological and mineralogical literature. A continued search will eventually unearth works on the history of the arts and architecture. This is because calcium carbonate minerals, be they in the form of chalk, limestone or marble, symbolize defining moments in the history of our culture - the first prehistoric cave drawings in simple coloured chalk, the gigantic limestone blocks used to build the Egyptian pyramids and the marble statues of Michelangelo and Bernini. This great diversity of what, at first sight, may appear to be only a simple chemical compound makes it rather difficult to explain to a layman what our company is producing and how the product should be defined. This task is much easier if you produce cars or furniture since only experts from different disciplines can associate certain concepts with calcium carbonate. The geologist and mineralogist will envision limestone and chalk or the different forms of marble. The engineer concerned with processing and application technologies will be familiar with the mineral's complicated crystalline properties, while the artist or art historian will think of the flawless "statuario" from the Carrara marble quarries that is sculptured into products that beautify our world. The different terms and definitions are as numerous as the multitude of "aesthetic" and "useful" items that can be produced from CaC03 - the chemical formula of calcium carbonate. Moreover, such a diversity and profusion invariably tends to be bewildering rather than clarifying. This book sets out to overcome this confusing array by indicating the multifarious interdependencies that exist in the world of calcium carbonate - its geology and the history of the arts, its extraction and processing and, obviously, its use in modern industry. Thus, the geologist will find out how a superwhite calcium carbonate slurry is produced from marble for use in paper making. The paper manufacturer, in turn, will be on home ground when the difference is explained between the calcium carbonate coating pigments produced from chalk or marble. This book is therefore not targeted at a specific professional group with clearly defined knowledge and closely outlined interests, but rather at a very broad spectrum of specialists - among them geologists, processing technicians, paper manufacturers and agricultural scientists - as well as interested laymen who are interested beyond their own particular fields. <...>