Life cycle assessment in the manufacture of clinker in different energy scenarios

Abstract

The co-processing technique has been used worldwide in order to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and traditional raw materials in the manufacture of clinker, using industrial waste for this purpose. However, it is necessary to evaluate the environmental performance of this practice. The objective of the work was to compare the environmental impacts of three different scenarios regarding the percentage of traditional and alternative fuels in the energy mix for the production of clinker. The methodology used was the life cycle assessment. The functional unit adopted was the production of one ton of clinker. The Impact Assessment method chosen was the ReCiPe midpoint. The results of the characterization indicated that the categories Human Toxicity, Formation of Photochemical Oxidizers, Formation of Particulate Material and Terrestrial Acidification suffered a reduced impact with the use of waste blends; on the other hand, most categories had an increase in impact as the percentage of substitution increased. Normalization pointed to Human Toxicity as the main impact of the activity and its greatest reduction by 62% in B scenario. It is concluded that due to the hazardous nature of the waste used in the case studied, co-processing in Brazil must incorporate mitigation measures, among them, the increase in the share of biomass residues in the blends so that it can move forward with more ambitious projections for the thermal substitution of traditional fuels.