The making the cement which is used in concrete is responsible for 8% of the global emissions each year. Cement production creates a third as much carbon pollution as the world’s entire transportation sector. If we are serious about reducing carbon emissions, we need to find environmentally friendly, low carbon alternatives to cement.
The basic raw material for cement is limestone, which is converted to cement clinker in large furnaces. Not only do those furnaces consume an enormous amount of energy, the environmental impact of the process is disastrously large. “Around one ton of carbon dioxide is released during cement production for every ton of limestone. The majority of this is emitted by the limestone itself,” Professor Herbert Pöllmann, a geoscientist at MLU, tells Science Daily.
It is actually industrial residues that can still be used very effectively, for example to produce alternative forms of cement,” says Pöllmann. The researches investigated a number of different ratios of ingredients and analyzed the physical properties of the new cement products they formed. The biggest advantage is that both aluminum and kaolin contain no carbon dioxide that can be released during processing.
“You can use them to produce large quantities of cement that has great properties,” explains Pöllmann. He says producers could either switch completely to the more climate-friendly materials or produce cement mixtures that use a lower ratio of limestone and are therefore more climate friendly.
A suitable alternative is not all cut and dried yet due to the quantities required but its good to see the biggest impacters on atmospheric carbon dioxide are being tackled to find alternatives.
See cleantechnica.com/2019/05/23/s…
