engleski

Emergy and Ecological Footprint Based Analysis of Different Cement Manufacturing Processes

The cement industry is an energy intensive industry, and one of the largest carbon emitting industrial sectors. Hence, it needs to adopt more energy efficient technologies to reduce its demand for fossil fuels and environmental impact. Bearing in mind that cement is the most widely used material for housing and modern infrastructure needs, the present paper analyses the Emergy and Ecological Footprint of different cement manufacturing processes for a particular cement plant. There are several mitigation measures that can be incorporated in the cement manufacturing process to reduce the demand for fossil fuels and consequently reduce the CO2 emissions. The mitigation measures considered in this paper were the use of alternative fuels and a more energy efficient kiln process. In order to estimate the sustainability effect of the named measures, Emergy and Ecological Footprint were calculated for four different scenarios. The results show that Emergy, due to the high input mass of raw material needed for clinker production, stays at the same level, however for the Ecological Footprint, the results shows that, by combining the use of alternative fuels together with a more energy efficient kiln process, the environmental impact of the cement manufacturing process can be lowered.

Sustainable cement production; Cement industry; Mitigation scenarios; Emergy; Ecological Footprint

nije evidentirano