Processing a Locally Sourced Gypsum Material for Medical and Industrial Applications

Gypsum is a favourite when it comes to mimicking certain features of human body and enhancing some properties of industrial products made from it. Gypsum is widely used for medical purposes such as design of dental prosthetics and limbs support in orthopaedics; but the gypsum powder used for these products are usually well processed. Gypsum ore samples were obtained from a mine at Ibese in Ogun State, Nigeria and processed in a multistage de-gritting operation to obtain a grit-free powder which was converted to gypsum plaster (Plaster of Paris, POP) at about 220 o C. The plaster powder so produced was used with property enhancing additives like calcium carbonate, sodium chloride, warm water and others to produce some medical and industrial products. Some of the medical products were tested at the State Specialist Hospital Ado-Ekiti and were found to conform with the required standard for such applications in medicine (especially dentistry and orthopedic). Other products such as chalk and wallboards were also produced from the processed gypsum and these also performed satisfactorily. Results of property tests showed that the products will have long service life. Keywords — multistage processing, de-gritting, property enhancer, dewatering, durability, dental, orthopaedics.