Uses for Limestone Rocks

Filtering and Purifying

• Limestone can be heated to release carbon dioxide gas from it, creating a substance called lime. The alkalinity of this substance makes a strong base that neutralizes acids. For this reason, lime is used to treat wastewater, industrial sludge, animal waste and industrial water supplies. It also helps control odor as it filters the water. In the steel industry, lime is used as a flux, a chemical cleaning agent, to purify steel by removing phosphorus, sulfur and silica.

Agriculture

• Agricultural limestone, also known as aglime, is a form of pulverized limestone added to agricultural fields. It works in a similar way to lime by neutralizing the acidity in the soil it is added to. It also helps increase the amount of crops grown in the field and also prevents soil erosion. Aglime made from dolomite, the type of limestone composed of calcium magnesium carbonate, also adds calcium and magnesium to the soil, which helps plants growing in it to better absorb both water and nutrients.

Aggregate

• Limestone is important to the construction industry as an aggregate. In fact, limestone aggregate is one of the largest mining industries in the world. Limestone is mined, crushed and broken up, then washed and stockpiled. The aggregate is used to construct everything from highways to homes, all of which require a large amount of aggregate.

Cement

• Limestone is also used to make Portland cement. The limestone is burned to create lime, along with other raw materials like fly ash and sand, in order to create what is called "clinker." This final product, of which limestone is the chief ingredient, is mixed with gypsum and finely ground into a powdery material that can then be mixed with water to create cement, which in turn is used to make concrete.