Mandatory dept tour

7th August 2022, Sunday

Yesterday I could not write any article because of my busy schedule. As a student I have a lot of free time but yesterday was very tough. Although it was quite pleasant, but in the end there was no more stamina.

Every department in the university has an industrial tour in the third year where every student is taught the various jobs of the industry and its techniques.

As I am a student of chemistry, we were decided to tour the cement factory. So we left home at eight o'clock in the morning to go to the cement factory and on time boarded the bus to the campus and waited for the departure. We left for the factory about an hour and a half late than the scheduled time. And in the beginning I forgot to tell us, our industrial tour was supposed to be for seven days but due to Covid-19 issue and four of our teachers went abroad for PhD, our seven days industrial tour was reduced to one day tour. Although none of our class was happy with this decision but due to time constraints we had to accept their decision.

If you notice a little, you will see that there are some cylindrical pillars on the side of the river. Basically that was our destination because that was the cement factory. The factory is located in such a place that the manufactured cements can be easily transported from one place to another using both land and water routes. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the factory.

As soon as I entered the factory, I saw some big buildings which were very interesting to see. Basically, there are big machines inside them that prepare cement using stone or raw materials for making cement.

We were given many instructions before entering the factory.

• Safety is fast

• wearing a helmet

• Do not touch any machine

• Do not touch any chemicals.

• Maintain certain distance

The stone-like substance you see here is not stone but gypsum. It is used in making cement and it basically bonds the brick with the cement. It contains limestone which we call calcium oxide.

Besides slag, clinker, fly ash there are some other raw materials which are used to prepare cement. If I went there I learned how cement is prepared completely but it is not possible to describe it here. So I am trying to describe those main points

It is a control room of the entire factory. Basically from here the whole factory all parts are controlled. There are several people appointed for machine control. Although these are beyond our understanding, they can be mastered very easily with adequate training. And that will be possible when I apply for a job in this company and get a job offer.

When the preparation of cement by various machines is done, the cement is packed by one person. Later those packets are exported to different parts of the country through another machine. According to them, this factory produces 4200 metric tons of cement per hour.

The prepared cement packets reach the river side by means of a mechanical roller coaster. Those packets are loaded onto the ship. Since our country is a riverine country, and it is possible to reach any part of the country through the river, the easiest means of communication is to avoid traffic jams. So in most cases river freight is mostly done instead of road. Although there is danger of ship sinking and loss of cargo but the percentage is very low. So river route is the best route.

This was my factory visit to gain experience in cement preparation. Hope you like it, thanks