Decarbonization options for cement production process: A techno-economic and environmental evaluation

Abstract

The long-term environmental targets require significant cuts of CO2 emissions in fossil fuel-intensive industrial processes. Currently, the cement production sector is responsible for approximate 8% of world anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The present paper assesses from the technical, environmental and economic point of view different decarbonization systems integrated into cement production plants. As CO2 capture technologies, the tail-end post-combustion capture using amine-based chemical scrubbing, membrane and calcium looping were assessed as well as the partial and total oxy-combustion options. The size of decarbonized cement concept has a capacity of 1 Mt/y with 90% CO2 capture rate. The overall techno-economic assessment was based on modelling and simulation to assess the key performance indexes. A non-decarbonized cement plant was also assessed for comparison to calculate the energy and economic penalties for decarbonization. The membrane and oxy-combustion concepts have the lowest cement production cost in comparison to the reactive absorption and adsorption concepts (112–119 vs. 125–145 €/t). The full oxy-combustion plant followed by the membrane concept exhibit the lowest CO2 avoided costs comparable with the current emission tax (60–70 vs. 60–80 €/t). The reactive gas–solid system (calcium looping) exhibits superior indicators than the chemical scrubbing system due to high temperature heat recovery.