Ground Calcium Carbonate

Ground Calcium Carbonate

Ground calcium carbonate is widely used in paper, plastics, paints, coatings, adhesives, sealants, construction materials, and many other industrial applications. Particle size distribution directly affects brightness, opacity, viscosity, surface finish, dispersion, and final product performance.

GCC production often requires tight control of fineness and top size. Different grades may have very specific PSD requirements, and even small deviations can affect customer performance.

Raw limestone or marble feed can vary in hardness, purity, moisture, and mineral structure. These changes influence grinding behaviour and make consistent product control more challenging.

Traditional GCC quality control relies on laboratory particle size measurements taken at intervals. This creates a delay between production changes and quality feedback, which can result in off-specification material or conservative operation.

Xoptix provides continuous real-time PSD measurement directly from the GCC grinding or classification circuit. Operators gain immediate visibility of product quality and can react quickly to process changes.

Real-time PSD monitoring helps reduce overgrinding, which is especially important where energy consumption and product surface area are key cost drivers. Producing material finer than required can increase cost without adding customer value.

Continuous measurement also supports faster grade changes. Operators can see when the product reaches the new specification, reducing transition losses and improving production flexibility.

By using Xoptix, GCC producers can improve product consistency, reduce manual testing, minimise off-specification production, optimise energy use, increase throughput, and provide customers with more reliable product quality.