Dolomite calcination is one of process steps to prepare calcined dolomite for raw materials in magnesium production. Calcination of dolomite involves heating the raw material at sufficient temperature in order to release the carbon dioxide from its carbonate minerals. This process is commonly conducted in a rotary kiln. There have been a number of calcination studies in a laboratory scale, but the study of dolomite calcination in a larger scale is very scarce. This research is aimed to study the performance of dolomite calcination in a bench-scale rotary kiln with 500 gram of feed. The effect of various parameters, including temperatures, feed rate, rotating frequency, and particle size were examined. The temperature of rotary kiln was varied between 700 and 1000 °C, while the particle size of dolomite was varied between 0.149 – 0.297 mm and up to 10 – 15 mm. The temperature distribution inside the rotary kiln was also measured. It is obtained that a conversion of 92% was attained at operation temperature of 1000 °C, which is at a higher temperature compared to the laboratory scale, where a conversion of 100% was obtained at 900 °C. This imply that the effect of heat transfer also plays important role in the calcination of dolomite especially at a larger scale.
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