Slurry Tank: Mason's Cement Works, Great Blakenham

Image: © Dylan Moore Taken: 14 Sep 1996

This plant used the "wet process" in which the raw materials were ground together with water to produce a slurry with approximately the consistency of paint. The slurry was then fed to the kiln which successively dried, calcined and sintered it at 1400°C to form Portland cement clinker. The raw materials here were Upper Chalk and Boulder Clay from quarries in Image The slurry contained around 32% of water by mass: this had to be evaporated, at significant energy-cost. Because of this, wet process plants have been progressively phased out over the last thirty years. There are currently (2008) only three wet-process cement kilns left in operation in the British Isles. For more details, see http://www.cementkilns.co.uk/cement_kiln_masons.html. 2009 Update: there are now no wet process kilns left: the last one (Westbury Kiln 2 Image) shut down in 2009.

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