Lime Burner

My 4x great grandfather was a lime burner in 1841. This was a very dangerous occupation.

Calcium carbonate - from chalk, limestone or even oyster shells - was heated in a kiln at over 900C for about 48 hours. Toxic carbon monoxide was given off. This could easily make a worker drowsy or even paralyse them and then suffocate them. There were instances of lime burners falling into the kiln because of the effects of the carbon monoxide.

The next job was to take the resulting hard cake of quicklime (calcium oxide) and add it to water. It would immediately react producing a shower of caustic specks of slaked lime (calcium hydroxide). The workers wouldn’t have had safety goggles to protect them!

The crumbly grains were then crushed into lime powder and that was added to sand to make mortar.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja4elm8-D00

http://www.medievaltravel.co.uk/jobs/limeburner.html

http://www.geoeast.org.uk/geoimap/norfpdf/lime-burning-factsheet.pdf