Calcium carbonate appears as white, odorless powder or colorless crystals. Practically insoluble in water. Occurs extensive in rocks world-wide. Calcium carbonate is one of the most abundant minerals on Earth and accounts for about 4% of the Earth’s crust. It can be found in nature in three principal rock types: chalk, limestone and marble. Its most common natural forms are chalk, limestone, and marble, produced by the sedimentation of the shells of small, fossilized snails, shellfish, and coral over millions of years.
Most calcium carbonate deposits are made up of the remains of marine organisms that have sedimented to the bottom of a shallow sea. These organisms, such as crustaceans, algae and coral, absorb calcium carbonate from the water and use it to form their skeletons and shells. When they die, their remains form sedimentary deposits on seabeds which build up over time to form rock.
Although all three forms are identical in chemical terms, they differ in many other respects, including purity, whiteness, thickness and homogeneity. Calcium carbonate is one of the most useful and versatile materials known to man. Ground calcium carbonate results directly from the mining of limestone. The extraction process keeps the carbonate very close to its original state of purity and delivers a finely ground product either in dry or slurry form.
Calcium carbonate is a calcium salt with formula CCaO3. It has a role as an antacid, a food colouring, a food firming agent and a fertilizer. It is a calcium salt, a carbonate salt and a one-carbon compound.
