Global strategies and potentials to curb CO2 emissions in cement industry

Abstract

Cement industry has been always among the largest CO2 emission sources. Almost 5e7% of global CO2 emissions are caused by cement plants, while 900 kg CO2 isemitted to the atmosphere for producing one ton of cement. In this work, global strategies and potentials toward mitigation of CO2 emissions in cement plant have beendiscussed and themost promisingapproacheshave beenintroduced.Moreover the barriers against worldwide deployment of such strategies are identified and comprehensively described. Three strategies of CO2 reduction including energysaving, carbon separationandstorage aswell as utilizing alternative materials in detail have been reviewed. In case of energy saving approaches, shifting to more efficient process for example fromwet to dry process with calciner, shows the best results since potentially reduces up to 50% of required energyand mitigates almost20% of CO2emissions in the process. Carbon capture andstorage (CCS) is also considered as an effectiveway to avoid release of CO2. However economical and technical challenges still play a remarkable obstacle against implementing such processes in the cement plant. As far as alternative materials are the case, utilizingwaste-derived fuel (WDF) and industrial by-products instead of conventional fuels and materials result in the significant emission mitigation. Industrial wastes which can be used as both fuel and raw material simultaneously mitigate emissions in cement plants and landfills. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.