Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 113, 1 February 2016, Pages 114-122
Journal of Cleaner Production

Review
Environmental impacts, life cycle assessment and potential improvement measures for cement production: a literature review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.11.078Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Environmental impacts of cement production are reviewed.

  • Methodological choices vary among LCA studies.

  • Main alternatives for mitigation were identified.

  • Mitigation: energy efficiency, alternative fuels, clinker substitution, CCS.

Abstract

Cement constitutes one of the primary building materials. As cement manufacturing involves the use of large amounts of raw materials and energy, an issue that arises is the necessity to assess its environmental impact and analyze in which way the industry should proceed concerning best practices. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has frequently been used in case studies around the globe as an environmental impact assessing tool. The present literature review serves for: (i) describing the environmental impacts, (ii) clarifying the methodological approaches in LCA, and (iii) identifying the main alternatives to improve the environmental performance of cement production. Several available studies on the environmental performance of manufacture and use of cement products were reviewed. These studies identified improvement of energy efficiency, the use of alternative fuels, clinker substitution, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the main solutions for mitigating environmental impacts caused by cement production. The first three options have been thoroughly analyzed, applied, and have shown improvement through the years. CCS has a high improvement potential; however, it presents technical and economic barriers to its implementation.

Introduction

Cement is a fine-powdered substance that, when mixed with water and aggregates, presents high adhesive (cementitious) properties. It is produced from limestone, clay, and sand; these raw materials provide lime, silica, alumina and iron, the key ingredients required. Cement production consists of three main stages: raw material preparation, clinker production, and cement preparation (International Energy Agency, 2009).

Limestone, clay, and other raw materials are quarried or mined and transferred to the manufacturing plant, where they are crushed and milled. They are mixed in the right proportions to reach the required composition. The composition depends on the quality and properties that each particular cement product demands.

The prepared composition is then fed into a kiln, usually after passing through a pre-heater, where it is exposed to temperatures up to 1450 °C. This process generates chemical and physical changes that transform the raw meal into clinker. This stage of the production is the most energy demanding.

The clinker is blended and ground with additives and other mineral components such as gypsum, slag, and fly ash that build up the required properties of the final product.

Depending on the moisture content of the material, cement production may be classified into four types: dry, semi-dry, semi-wet and wet. Dry and semi-dry processes are the most efficient and the most used nowadays (Benhelal et al., 2013, Galvez-Martos and Schoenberger, 2014, Wang et al., 2013). This literature review aims to (i) present the environmental impacts related to the cement industry worldwide, (ii) summarize previous Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodological approaches and results, and (iii) identify the environmental performance improvement measures in the reviewed studies.

In this study, previous studies regarding the environmental performance of cement products were reviewed. The review focused on those studies related to the environmental performance of cement production and those which applied LCA for the analysis.

Section snippets

Environmental impacts of cement production

On average, 1 ton of concrete is produced every year for every human being in the world (Lippiatt and Ahmad, 2004). Concrete is a composite material composed of cement, aggregates (sand, gravel, or crushed stone) and water. Cement manufacturing implies the use of large amounts of raw materials and energy (van Oss and Padovani, 2002), and its production accounts for 5% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions (Hendriks, 2000). Due to vast urbanization, the use of cement has increased dramatically (

LCA of cement products manufacture

LCA is a tool for evaluating the environmental performance of a product (or service) during its life cycle. The life cycle of a product involves the processes that occur during resource extraction, production, logistics, use, and, end of life (EN ISO 14044:2006, 2006). The ISO14040-14044 series specify four steps for LCA execution: definition of goal and scope, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation (EN ISO 14044:2006, 2006):

Improvement measures

The International Energy Agency (IEA) focuses on four categories of improvement measures available for the cement industry regarding CO2 emissions reduction (International Energy Agency, 2009): energy efficiency, alternative fuels, clinker substitution, and carbon capture and storage (CCS). Among the reviewed literature, solutions regarding the first three categories are the most widely analyzed as they have been thoroughly developed through the years (Benhelal et al., 2013, Chen et al., 2014,

Discussion

Industrialization and urbanization greatly drive the growing demand for cement products. Current production levels result in important requirements of raw materials and energy resources by this sector. Also, this results in major environmental impacts. The environmental impacts caused by cement production are associated with mining and quarrying, waste disposal, materials storage, fuels and raw materials production, plant production capacity, clinker production, clinker content of the cement

Conclusions

Several case studies around the world assessed the environmental impacts of cement production. The reviewed literature identified hot spots and potential improvement measures in the cement industry. These measures are energy efficiency, alternative fuel use, material substitution, and CCS. Improvement measures focusing on the first three solutions are regarded as mature technologies, as they have been thoroughly studied and applied. These mature technologies are relatively low-cost and

Acknowledgments

This paper is based on work funded by Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL, Ecuador.

References (41)

  • H. Mikulčić et al.

    Improving the sustainability of cement production by using numerical simulation of limestone thermal degradation and pulverized coal combustion in a cement calciner

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2015)
  • W.R. Morrow et al.

    Assessment of energy efficiency improvement and CO2 emission reduction potentials in India's cement and iron & steel industries

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2014)
  • T. Proske et al.

    Eco-friendly concretes with reduced water and cement contents — mix design principles and laboratory tests

    Cem. Concr. Res.

    (2013)
  • C. Strazza et al.

    Resource productivity enhancement as means for promoting cleaner production: analysis of co-incineration in cement plants through a life cycle approach

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2011)
  • C. Valderrama et al.

    Implementation of best available techniques in cement manufacturing: a life-cycle assessment study

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2012)
  • M. Valipour et al.

    Environmental assessment of green concrete containing natural zeolite on the global warming index in marine environments

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2014)
  • P. Van den Heede et al.

    Environmental impact and life cycle assessment (LCA) of traditional and “green” concretes: literature review and theoretical calculations

    Cem. Concr. Compos.

    (2012)
  • Y. Wang et al.

    Trajectory and driving factors for GHG emissions in the Chinese cement industry

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2013)
  • M.M. Al-Dadi et al.

    Environmental impact of some cement manufacturing plants in Saudi Arabia

    J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem.

    (2014)
  • J. Ammenberg et al.

    Improving the CO2 performance of cement, part III: the relevance of industrial symbiosis and how to measure its impact

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2014)
  • Cited by (187)

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text