A life-cycle Assessment of Portland Cement Manufacturing: Comparing the traditional process with alternative technologies Summary

In this paper the authors, Deborah N. Huntzinger et.al have compared the different Life-Cycle processes in the manufacturing of cement and identified the ones which is most effective in reducing the GHG especially Carbon Dioxide over the traditional process of manufacturing the Portland cement. Given the fact that 1 ton of concrete is produced each year of every human being in the world, they have identified the cement industry as one of the major contributors of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions. It is worth noting that the calcination process accounts for almost 50% of the total CO2 emissions in this industry and rest is from the energy usage during the production process. It is therefore important to analyse the alternative techniques which may offer to reduce CO2 emission. The processes discussed in the paper are namely: 1> Traditional Portland Cement 2> Blended Cement (Natural Pozzolans, Fly Ash) 3> Portland Cement Sequestering CO2 in Cement Kiln Dust (CKD) 4> Portland Cement when CKD is recycled back into the Kiln The authors have adopted the cradle to gate approach for the Life- Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the four processes. 1> The boundary defined was limited till the shipping of the finished product. The scope of the process was defined specifically to the emission of the CO2. The use and disposal were excluded from LCA because they are almost same for all the four processes and are not much energy intensive.

2> Inventory of data for raw material acquisition, electricity production and heat generation were obtained from SimaPro libraries and databases. 3> SimaPro 6.0 was used to assess environmental impacts of the inventoried elements. 4> The results were interpreted and suggestions for improvement were given. In the traditional way of manufacturing, after quarrying the raw materials are sent to the manufacturing unit for crushing and grinding to a fine powder state. Then it is preheated and entered to a very high temperature rotary kiln. After which it is cooled and gypsum is added to the clinker for regulating the settling time. In the blended cement natural pozzolans like volcanic ash , fly ash , rice husk ash etc. are added along with gypsum which reduces the quantity of clinker required and also the amount of landfilled material. In the sequestration manufacturing method, emitted CO2 is sequestered in the CKD which not only stabilizes the waste but also reduces environmental and health risk potential of CKD. In the recycling process, CKD produced is recycled back into the kiln which reduces the quantity of raw material required. Out of the four methods, blended cement is found to be the most effective CO2 reducing manufacturing process followed by the CO2 sequestration method. The CKD recycling method has little benefits over the traditional method. Limitations: The data from the secondary sources were not validated. Reduction in GHG emissions in blended over traditional method could be an illusion because of the given current demand for the cement and concrete products.

Group-3: Neeti Suhag, Shikha Jain, Niraj Chourasia, Tejaswini Bhatnagar, Chintan Suratia, Tanvi Ahmed