Global strategies and potentials to curb CO2 emissions in cement industry

Abstract

Cement industry has been always among the largest CO2 emission sources. Almost 5–7% of global CO2 emissions are caused by cement plants, while 900 kg CO2 is emitted 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 been discussed and the most promising approaches have been introduced. Moreover the barriers against worldwide deployment of such strategies are identified and comprehensively described. Three strategies of CO2 reduction including energy saving, carbon separation and storage as well as utilizing alternative materials in detail have been reviewed. In case of energy saving approaches, shifting to more efficient process for example from wet to dry process with calciner, shows the best results since potentially reduces up to 50% of required energy and mitigates almost 20% of CO2 emissions in the process. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is also considered as an effective way 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, utilizing waste-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.