The effect of lime Ca(OH)₂ to the constant of granulation rate (k) of Sidoarjo mud (LuSi) and its grain size distribution

¹ Department of Civil Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya, Indonesia
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: dasyripasmar@gmail.com, noormochtar@gmail.com

Abstract

Sidoarjo mud (LuSi) is very hot and sticky mud-like substance produced by eruption of Kujung, Kalibeng, and Pucangan formations caused by well exploration for gas in Porong, Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia. LuSi submerged villages, industrial areas, and rice fields in Porong. The eruption is still taking place so that it needs more area and higher dike surrounded to retain the mud. Therefore, it is very urgent to use LuSi in huge volumes such as for borrowed materials. LuSi grain size and its strength, however, do not meet the borrowed materials requirement. Therefore, the grain size was improved using granulator drum and lime Ca(OH)2 was used to increase its strength. The grain size produced by granulator was affected by length, diameter, and rotation rate of granulator drum, and also by constant of granulation rate ‘k’ that was function of other parameters, inclination angle of granulator drum (S), moisture content (W), and water temperature (T). The results show that lime needed for stabilization is 10% of LuSi dry weight. The “k” is affected by lime where parameters (S) and (W) become smaller and (T) is higher. Lime also produces dryer granular, higher water resistance, and shorter granulation process. Besides, higher water temperature during granulation process is needed to develop bigger grain size for granular stabilized-LuSi.