Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxxxxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Life-cycle environmental impact analysis of a typical cement production

chain q
Dan Song a, Jin Yang a, Bin Chen a,b,, Tasawar Hayat b,c, Ahmed Alsaedi b
a

State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, PR China
NAAM Group, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
c
Department of Mathematics, Quaid-i-Azam University, 45320 Islamabad, Pakistan
b

h i g h l i g h t s
 The lifetime environmental impacts of a cement production chain were evaluated.
 A comparison of best available technologies was conducted by setting scenarios.
 Calcination and grinding processes are the largest environmental emitters.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 31 October 2014
Received in revised form 1 July 2015
Accepted 2 September 2015
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Cement production
Life-cycle analysis
Raw material and fuel substitution
Best available technology
Environmental emissions

a b s t r a c t
Cement is one of the three main construction materials, which provides support for other related industries and fuels the economic growth. However, cement production is also a high-polluting sector. In this
study, a life-cycle environmental assessment was performed for a typical new suspension preheater dry
process (NSP) cement production in China. A comparison of the life cycle environmental impact of best
available technologies was also conducted by setting a series of scenarios so as to find the most promising
alternative in reducing environmental impacts. The results suggest that although direct calcination is the
largest contributor of environmental emissions in the cement production system, indirect sections, particularly the downstream grinding section, play an important role in terms of environmental impact,
which should be considered as the control point in achieving energy saving and emission reduction goal.
Comparing the environmental performance of raw material and fuel substitution alternatives and best
available technologies, the results of scenario analysis reveals that environmental benefits of carbide slag
and the mixture of carbide slag and limestone slag as raw material substitutions is not prominent as it
induces extra environmental costs that offset the environmental benefits from reduced limestone usage.
Corn straw as coal substitution and heat recovery and cogeneration are found to be promising ways to
achieve environmental mitigation with a notable environmental benefit for cement production. The prevailing NSP kiln technology is more environmental beneficial compared with shaft kiln technology.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Cement industry provides an irreplaceable support for the operation of various downstream industries of Chinese economy. The
production of cement industry in China increased from 597 million
q
This article is based on a short proceedings paper in Energy Procedia Volume
161 (2014). It has been substantially modified and extended, and has been subject
to the normal peer review and revision process of the journal. This paper is included
in the Special Issue of ICAE2014 edited by Prof. J Yan, Prof. DJ Lee, Prof. SK Chou, and
Prof. U Desideri.
Corresponding author at: No. 19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing 100875, PR China.
Tel./fax: +86 10 58807368.
E-mail address: chenb@bnu.edu.cn (B. Chen).

tons in 2000 to 2.18 billion tons in 2012 due to growing demand.

Cement produced by Chinas industry accounted for 58% of global
cement output in 2012 [1,2]. Moreover, this status will continue
in the next decade, which may exert great pressure on the environment. The total coal and electricity consumptions of the Chinese
cement industry in 2012 amounted to 208 million tons and 168
billion kWh, which result in the atmospheric emissions of sulfur
dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and particulates at 1.09 million, 1.98 million and 0.67 million tons, respectively [3,4]. In addition, CO2 emissions of Chinese cement industry accounts for 58%
of global anthropogenic emissions [5]. Due to the extensive
resource consumption and inevitably environmental discharge in
the production process, cement production has attracted growing

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.003
0306-2619/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Song D et al. Life-cycle environmental impact analysis of a typical cement production chain. Appl Energy (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.003

D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxxxxx

concern in exploring its emission reduction potential [6,7]. Different from other industries, cement production emits pollutions not
only via direct fossil fuel use, but also through the production procedure as indirect emission [8]. Therefore the whole process emission must be considered when assessing the environmental
impacts of cement industry.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a valuable tool for improving our
understanding of the environmental hazards posed by a products
life stages. Using LCA, many existing studies have been conducted
to evaluate the environmental impacts of cement production
chains [7,914]. However, in light of the expanding cement production in China, it is crucial to not only probe into environmental
impacts of traditional production lines, but also to find possible
improvements of Chinese cement production through technological changes in the context of environmental impacts alleviation.
Currently, research on environmental impacts of fuel substitutions
[15,16], raw materials substitutions [1721], and best available
technologies [3,12,2226] for cement production have already
been conducted. In China, although new suspension preheater
dry process cement production constitutes more than 90% of total
cement production in 2012, technological improvements that contribute to energy saving and environmental emission reduction
should be explored to meet the more and more strict environmental protection goals.
This paper aims to undertake a lifetime environmental assessment of a typical 2500 t/d new suspension preheater dry process
(NSP) cement production line in China, and compare its environmental impacts with those of best available technologies and raw
material and fuel substitutions in calcination. The purposes of this
paper include: to find the environmental emission-intensive sections in the cement production chain, and to shed light on future
technology selection of cement production based on a life-cycle
examination of the pro and cons of best available technologies in
cement production. The rest of this paper is organized as below:
In Section 2, the steps how LCA is conducted in cement production
are introduced in detail. The environmental impact assessment
results of a typical Chinese NSP cement production chain are presented in Section 3. Scenario analysis of best available technologies
is conducted in Section 4. Finally, based on the LCA of the cement
production line, conclusions are drawn to shed light on the selection of cement production technological pathways.
2. Methodology
LCA is a tool to assess the potential environmental impacts and
resources used throughout a products lifetime, i.e., from raw
material acquisition, via production and use phases, to waste management [27]. Based on ISO 14040 standard, there are four major
steps of an LCA of cement production, i.e., (1) define the assessment goal and system boundary; (2) compile the life-cycle inventory; (3) conduct the life-cycle impact assessment of the product/
technology; and (4) interpret, summarize, analyze and communicate the results. In this section, the LCA method of cement production is elaborated based on the steps aforementioned.
2.1. Goal and scope definition
The goal of this study is to appraise the environmental performances of a typical NSP cement production chain as well as its
technological alternatives. The considered functional unit is 1 t
Portland cement production. In terms of system boundary, LCA is
in principle a cradle to grave exercise. However, in some cases cradle to gate, gate to gate, gate to cradle or, more recently, cradle to
cradle approaches are possible. In the case of cement the approach
can only be cradle to gate as it can have many different

applications later. Therefore, the whole cradle to gate process

within system boundary include mining, transportation of raw
materials, crushing, preblending, grinding, homogenization, preheating decomposition, clinker calcining, grinding, packaging,
and waste treatment. To simplify the whole production chain, we
merge the whole chain into 8 processes, i.e., mining, transportation, raw material preparation, calcination, waste gas treatment,
grinding, packaging and others (see Fig. 1). The emission discharge
is emphasized at these stages.
2.2. Life cycle inventory analysis
The materials and energy consumed in this system embrace: (1)
limestone, sandstone, flyash, sulfuric-acid residue, gypsum and
mixtures; (2) energy input from external systems such as coal
and electricity. The system outputs include P.O 42.5 Portland
cement (0.455 million tonnes) and P.F 42.5 Portland cement
(0.578 million tonnes). The specification of P.O 42.5 and P.F 42.5
Portland cement is shown in Table 1. The data was collected from
a typical enterprise in north China with a production capacity of
77.5E + 04 tons per year. The data cover all the consumed raw
materials and energy in the production chain.
2.2.1. Mining
The required limestone is 0.92 million tonnes per year for
cement production. The recoverable source of the mine nearby
the concerned cement plant is 70.02 million tonnes, which is
affluent for limestone extraction. In the mining process, the
environmental impacts of electricity consumption by extraction
machines used are taken into account.
2.2.2. Transportation
The cement production plant concerned in this study has a convenient transportation network. Motor transportation is used for
raw material and products delivery, starting from the manufacturer nearby and arriving at each specific site for production. In this
case, heavy diesel truck with the carrying capacity of 30 t was used
for transportation. The quantity and distance transported is shown
in Table 2.
2.2.3. Raw material preparation
The raw material preparation stage includes processes of crushing, preblending of sandstone, raw material grinding, fuel preblending and grinding. In this stage, electricity is used to drive
equipment of crusher, belt conveyor, stackerreclaimer, vertical
mill system and ball pulverizer. The electricity consumed in this
stage is 19.6 GW h.
2.2.4. Calcination
The prepared raw material is then heated in a pre-calciner to
initiate the decomposition of CaCO3 to calcium oxide (CaO) and
CO2. It is then burned in a rotary kiln to continue the
reaction between CaO and other elements to form calcium silicates
and aluminates. The output mixture, i.e., clinker, is delivered for
cooling afterwards. The capacity of the calcination system is
2500 t/d, with the heat rate of 3178 kJ/kg. In this stage, direct environmental emissions from CaCO3 decomposition and raw coal
combustion and indirect emissions from electricity consumption
are considered.
2.2.5. Waste gas treatment
The dust generated from raw material grinding and calcination
is collected and delivered to a bag filter, and emitted out via dustdischarging fan. In this stage, electricity of 0.2 GW h is used for the
operation of bag filter and dust-discharging fan.

Please cite this article in press as: Song D et al. Life-cycle environmental impact analysis of a typical cement production chain. Appl Energy (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.003

Global Warming Potential(GWP)

Mining
Acidification Potential (AP)
Transport
Clinker

Environmental impact assessment

Background system

D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxxxxx

Energy

Production process

Cement

Raw material
preparation

Resource
depletion

Calcination
Waste gas

Eutrophication Potential (EP)

Photochemical Ozone Create
Potential (POCP)
Ozone Layer Depletion (ODP)
Abiotic Depletion(ADP)
Human Toxic Potential (HTP)
Freshwater Aquatic Ecotoxicity
(FAETP)

Grinding
Packaging

Waste treatment

Waste water

Marine Aquatic Ecotoxicity

(MAETP)

Waste soil

Terrestrial Ecotoxicity (TETP)

Fig. 1. System boundary of the typical cement production line.

Table 1
The specification of cement types.
Type

Output (million ton)

Composition (%)

Compressing strength (MPA)

Standard

P.O 42.5 Portland cement

P.F 42.5 Portland cement

0.455
0.578

80% 6 (gpsum and clinker) < 95%

60% 6 (gpsum and clinker)<80% 20% 6 fly ash < 40%

42.5
42.5

GB1752007
GB1752007

Table 2
Transportation of major materials.
Materials

Quantity
(million ton/yr)

Quantity (ton/day)

Distance (km)

Limestone
Sandstone
Flyash
Sulfur acid residue
Mixtures
Raw coal
Gypsum

0.96
0.13
0.09
0.02
0.20
0.12
0.04

3095.96
434.90
305.56
61.86
661.87
398.44
115.57

1.5
2.0
3.1
232
3.1
33
70

2.2.6. Grinding and packaging

According to the specification of P.O42.5 cement and P.F42.5
cement, the output mixture from the calcination stage is mixed
with gypsum for grinding. The cement produced after grinding is
then delivered to the packing machine. The electricity consumed
in the grinding and packaging stage is 34.7 GW h and 0.1 GW h,
respectively.
2.2.7. Others
Others refer to electricity consumption that support the operation of the whole cement plant except for the electricity consumption mentioned in the aforementioned stages.
2.2.8. Diagram the LCA inventory
The material and energy inputs are diagramed to vividly illustrate the material flow in the cement production system, as shown

in Fig. 2. This figure comprises all non-fuel raw materials such as

limestone (0.92 million tonnes), sandstone, flyash, surfuric acid
residue (0.29 million metric tonnes) together with gypsum
(0.24 million metric tonnes). At the raw material preparation stage,
approximately 1.22 million tonnes materials were consumed, of
which limestone is the major input. All prepared raw material
together with mixtures (0.23 million metric tonnes) are then delivered to the calcination process. The outputs of calcination are P.
O42.5 (0.46 million metric tonnes) and P.F42.5 (0.58 million metric
tonnes) Portland cement. Limestone is the largest raw material
consumed in the production of cement at 60.39% of the non-fuel
raw material. For fuels consumed in this process, coal is the main
fuel to drive the calcination process, and diesel is specifically used
for transportation of raw materials and product. Electricity is
mainly used for cement grinding (34.7 GW h), followed by calcination (27 GW h) and raw material preparation (19.6 GW h). Waste
treatment and mining only constitute a negligible part of electricity consumption.

2.3. Life cycle environmental assessment

The inventory data for each stage were compiled in the China
life cycle database (CLCD) [28]. To evaluate the environmental
impacts associated with the mass and energy flows, we use the
CML 2001 method (described in [29]) in this study, covering
impact categories of abiotic depletion (ADP) (indicated by antimony eq), global warming potential (GWP) (CO2-eq), ozone layer
depletion (ODP) (CFC-11 eq), human toxicity (HTP) (1, 4-DCB-eq),
freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity (FAETP) (1, 4-DCB-eq), marine

Please cite this article in press as: Song D et al. Life-cycle environmental impact analysis of a typical cement production chain. Appl Energy (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.003

D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxxxxx

Fig. 2. Material flows in the cement production chain.

aquatic ecotoxicity (MAETP) (1, 4-DCB-eq), terrestrial ecotoxicity

(TETP) (1, 4-DCB-eq), photochemical oxidation (POCP) (C2H4-eq),
acidification (AP) (SO2-eq), and eutrophication (EP) (PO4 -eq).
3. Environmental impact assessment of a typical NSP cement
production chain
The environmental impacts are tracked within eight stages
(mining, transport, raw material preparation, calcination, waste
gas treatment, grinding, packing and others). Both onsite and
embodied environmental emissions in producing 1 functional unit
are shown in Table 3. The contribution of different processes to the
environmental impact categories is also presented. The calcination
contributes the largest proportion in terms of GWP, HTP, AP, POCP
and EP. Mining is the largest contributor of impact categories of
ADP, ODP, FAETP, MAETP, and TETP. Except for calcination and
mining, grinding is another important contributor of environmental emissions in all impact categories. Transportation has a prominent impact on ODP. Waste gas treatment, packaging have a
relatively minor impact on the environment.
To rank the impact of cement production on the environment,
we select the environmental impacts of the world average in
2000 as reference, of which ADP is 2.09E+08 antimony eq, GWP
is 4.18E+13 kg CO2 eq, ODP is 2.27 E+08 kg CFC-11 eq, HTP is
2.58E+12 kg 1,4-DCB eq, FAETP is 2.36E+12 kg 1,4-DCB eq, MAETP
is 1.94E+14 kg 1,4-DCB eq, TETP is 1.09E+12 kg 1,4-DCB eq, POCP is

3.68E+10 kg C2H4-eq, AP is 2.39E+11 kg SO2 eq, EP is 1.58E+11 kg

PO4eq, respectively [30]. The normalized environmental impacts
of producing 1 tonne of cement are presented in Fig. 3. The rankings of cement production on the environment are GWP, AP, POCP,
MAETP, EP, HTP, FAETP, ADP, TETP, and ODP. Among these impact
categories, the impact of cement production on GWP is much larger compared with other environmental impact categories, followed by AP and POCP, which indicates that impacts on GHG, AP
and POCP should be emphasized when finding raw materials and
fuel substitutions for production.
Specifically, GWP impact of different stages is decomposed to
find the key points for better GHG emissions control. We classify
the lifetime GHG emissions into direct GHG emissions and indirect
GHG emissions. Direct GHG emissions include those from fossil
fuel combustion (raw material combustion and diesel consumed
in the transportation), calcium carbonate decomposition, and
non-fuel carbon calcination. Indirect GHG emissions include those
from mining, upstream emissions from purchased electricity, and
the emissions from clinker production.
In this cement production chain, the proportion of direct GHG
emission is higher than indirect GHG emission (Fig. 4). Among
direct GHG emission, calcinations that consist of decarbonation
and coal consumption is the major GHG emission source. It implies
that the most efficient way to reduce GHG emissions for cement
production is to find raw material and fuel alternatives. Indirect
emissions also constitute a remarkable proportion (15.34%),

Table 3
Environmental impacts of producing 1 tonne of cement. (Units: kg/ton).
Stage

ADP
Antimony eq

GWP
CO2-eq

ODP
CFC-11 eq

HTP
1,4-DCB-eq

FAETP
1,4-DCB-eq

MAETP
1,4-DCB-eq

AP
SO2-eq

POCP
C2H4-eq

EP
PO4-eq

TETP
1,4-DCB-eq

Mining
Transportation
Raw meal preparation
Calcination
Waste gas treatment
Grinding
Packaging
Others
Total

1.97E
1.59E
1.44E
1.97E
8.98E
2.54E
1.16E
6.79E
2.65E

1.65E+01
1.16E+00
1.89E+01
5.99E+02
1.19E 01
3.35E+01
1.53E 01
8.97E+00
6.78E+02

3.65E
9.92E
3.26E
4.48E
2.04E
5.77E
2.64E
1.54E
6.15E

8.94E
6.88E
2.11E
7.25E
1.32E
3.73E
1.71E
9.99E
8.83E

3.25E
1.21E
1.46E
2.00E
9.10E
2.57E
1.18E
6.89E
5.14E

3.03E+02
1.75E+01
2.69E+01
3.70E+01
1.68E 01
4.76E+01
2.18E 01
1.27E+01
4.45E+02

8.51E 02
2.32E 02
9.60E 02
2.09E+00
6.00E 04
1.70E 01
7.76E 04
4.54E 02
2.51E+00

1.77E
6.00E
2.61E
9.55E
1.63E
4.62E
2.11E
1.24E
1.28E

1.04E
4.30E
6.74E
1.22E
4.22E
1.19E
5.45E
3.19E
1.59E

8.95E
3.52E
8.40E
1.16E
5.25E
1.49E
6.79E
3.98E
1.32E

06
08
07
07
10
07
09
08
06

07
08
08
08
10
08
10
08
07

02
04
02
01
04
02
04
03
01

01
01
02
02
05
02
04
03
01

02
03
03
02
05
03
05
03
01

02
03
03
01
05
02
05
03
01

03
04
04
03
06
03
06
04
02

Please cite this article in press as: Song D et al. Life-cycle environmental impact analysis of a typical cement production chain. Appl Energy (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.003

D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxxxxx

Normalized impact

1.60E-011
1.40E-011
1.20E-011
1.00E-011
8.00E-012
6.00E-012
4.00E-012
2.00E-012
0.00E+000
ADP

GWP

ODP

HTP FAETP MAETP TETP

POCP

AP

EP

Impact categories
Fig. 3. Normalized environmental impacts of producing 1 tonne of cement.

mainly from calcination (3.84%), grinding, which occupies 4.94% of

the total emission and mining (occupies 2.43%) to the whole process. For the material transportation, as all kinds of raw material
and fuel resources can be obtained nearby due to the location, it
has less GHG emissions compared with other stages, of which
transport of sulfuric acid slag, coal, gypsum occupied larger proportion due to its long distance.
4. Scenario analysis
The results reveal that calcination is the largest contributor of
environmental emissions. Thus, improvement of calcination process by using advanced technologies is a possible way to reduce
material use and environmental emissions of cement production.
In this section, scenarios of two raw meal mixes, a fuel substitution, and a heat recovery and cogeneration technology are hypothetically designed. Also, the environmental performances of
cement production by NSP kiln and shaft kiln are compared.
4.1. Scenarios setting
4.1.1. Raw material substitutions
Industrial by-products (e.g., slag, fly ash, industrial gypsum, and
industrial sand) can be used as substitutes for traditional natural

600
500

Indirect emissions
Direct emissions

400
300

kg/t

200
100

30
20
10

Fig. 4. GHG emissions of different stages of cement production.

Others

Package

Grinding

Waste gas treatment

Calcination

Raw meal preparation

Transport

Mining

raw materials. The recovered materials can either be used as raw

material in the raw meal, or in the cement grinding as substitutes
for clinker or cement additives [18]. Carbide slag, generated from
calcium carbide acetylene method with main component of Ca
(OH)2, is a prevailing raw material used for raw material substitution in cement manufactory. As carbide slag is difficult for disposal
and exerts great pressure on the environment, using carbide slag
for cement manufactory is one of the most efficient ways for waste
reuse. Currently, carbide slag has already been used to 100% substitute limestone [31]. However, carbide slag has a high water content (8%) even after concentration in sedimentation tank.
Although direct environmental emissions from calcination may
be reduced using carbide slag as substitution in cement production, extra electricity is consumed in the drying of carbide slag.
In this scenario, keeping the cement output unchanged, the
amount of carbide slag that can substitute 50% (scenario 11),
80% (scenario 12) and 100% (scenario 13) of CaO in limestone
was assumed as raw material.
In addition, new technology of mixing limestone slag with carbide slag as raw material substitution has also been applied to
reduce the raw material limestone input (the composition of carbide slag and limestone slag is shown in Table 4). The combined
utilization of carbide slag and limestone slag as raw material substitution can thereby not only reduce limestone input in cement
production, but also synergistically dispose industrial waste. To
evaluate the environmental performance of raw material substitution using the mixture of carbide slag and limestone slag, keeping
the cement output unchanged, 3 scenarios, i.e., 90% carbide slag
and 10% limestone slag (scenario 21), 80% carbide slag and 20%
limestone slag (scenario 22), and 70% carbide slag and 30% limestone slag (scenario 23), are designed to replace high quality
limestone.
4.1.2. Fuel substitutions
The energy-intensiveness of cement production processes and
increasing fuel prices, combined with fuel deficit, force the cement
industry to search for technologies based on waste-derived and
alternative fuels [32]. The results in Section 3 also reveal that coal
is one of the largest contributors in the cement production chain.
To cut energy costs and reduce emissions from fuel combustion,
attentions are paid on finding fuel alternatives. Currently, the utilization of fuel substitutions in cement production has already
been proved economically and ecologically feasible [33,34].
Corn straw, a kind of agricultural waste, is regarded a promising
fuel substitution in cement production due to its lower sulfur content and carbon neutral property. To probe into the lifetime pro
and cons using straw as fuel substitution, keeping the cement output unchanged, the amount of corn straw that equivalent to 20%
(scenario 21), 30% (scenario 22) and 50% (scenario 23) low
heating value (LHV) of coal is supposed as fuel to substitute coal
in calcination.
4.1.3. Heat recovery and cogeneration
According to the aforementioned LCA results, electricity is a
main driver of the NSP cement production. The expanding demand
on cement thereby enlarges the electricity supply in cement production industry. Efforts have been made to recover waste (300
400 C) heat from the kiln gases (preheater exit gas) and cooler
exhaust air for power generation in NSP cement production line.
The heat embodied in waste gas constitutes 35% of total thermal
energy consumption in the clinker calcination process. The heat
recovery and cogeneration technology is of great energy saving
potential. In heat recovery and cogeneration system, the AQC
waste heat boiler was used to capture low grade heat from
waste gas. A superheated steam is then produced, which in turn
powers a turbine that creates electricity for cement production.

Please cite this article in press as: Song D et al. Life-cycle environmental impact analysis of a typical cement production chain. Appl Energy (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.003

D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxxxxx

Table 4
The composition of carbide slag and limestone slag.

Carbide slag
Limestone slag

SiO2

Al2O3

Fe2O3

CaO

MgO

SO3

K2O

Na2O

Cl

Loss

3.38
2.15

1.30
0.35

0.24
0.05

68.90
51.57

0.06
2.01

0.39
0.06

0.03
0.03

0.08
0.04

0.01
0.0004

25.61
43.55

Table 5
Comparison of environmental performances of raw material substitutions (Units: kg/ton).

Baseline
Scenario
Scenario
Scenario
Scenario
Scenario
Scenario

11
12
13
21
22
23

ADP
Antimony eq

GWP
CO2-eq

ODP
CFC-11 eq

HTP
1,4-DCB-eq

FAETP
1,4-DCB-eq

MAETP
1,4-DCB-eq

AP
SO2-eq

POCP
C2H4-eq

EP
PO4-eq

TETP
1,4-DCB-eq

2.65E
1.95E
1.52E
1.24E
1.24E
1.24E
1.24E

6.78E+02
6.73E+02
6.70E+02
6.67E+02
6.70E+02
6.72E+02
6.74E+02

6.15E
5.31E
4.81E
4.48E
4.48E
4.48E
4.48E

8.83E
8.45E
8.23E
8.07E
8.07E
8.07E
8.07E

5.14E
3.54E
2.59E
1.95E
1.95E
1.96E
1.96E

4.45E+02
3.20E+02
2.45E+02
1.94E+02
1.94E+02
1.94E+02
1.94E+02

2.51E+00
2.48E+00
2.47E+00
2.46E+00
2.46E+00
2.46E+00
2.46E+00

1.28E
1.21E
1.17E
1.14E
1.14E
1.14E
1.14E

1.59E
1.54E
1.52E
1.50E
1.50E
1.50E
1.50E

1.32E
1.08E
9.43E
8.49E
8.49E
8.48E
8.47E

06
06
06
06
06
06
06

07
07
07
07
07
07
07

01
01
01
01
01
01
01

TETP
EP
POCP
AP
MAETP
FAETP
HTP
ODP
GWP
ADP

Calcination

Raw meal preparation

01
01
01
01
01
01
01

01
01
01
01
01
01
01

01
01
01
01
01
01
01

02
02
03
03
03
03
03

TETP
EP
POCP
AP
MAETP
FAETP
HTP
ODP
GWP
ADP

Calcination

Raw meal preparation

Transportation
Transportation

Mining
Mining

0.00E+000

0.00E+000
2.00E-013

1.20E-012

1.40E-012

2.00E-013

1.20E-012

1.40E-012

Fig. 6. Differences of environmental impacts of baseline and scenario 23 in

producing 1 tonne of cement.

Fig. 5. Differences of environmental impacts of baseline and scenario 13 in

producing 1 tonne of cement.

In this scenario (scenario 31), the environmental performance of

cement production equipped with a 4500 kW low-temperature
cogeneration system and annual power generation of
3.04  107 kW h is assessed. Extracting auxiliary power consumption, the power supplied to cement production from waste heat
is 2.80  107 kW h.
4.1.4. Comparison of NSP kiln and shaft kiln
There are two most common cement production processes in
China, i.e., the shaft kiln and the NSP kiln, accounting for more than
95% of total cement production capacity [8]. Although the proportion of NSP kilns continues to increase in recent years, shaft kilns
are still adopted in many small and medium-sized enterprises
due to their lower costs. During the period of technical transformation and the heated concern on environmental issues in cement
production industry, it is of great importance to conduct a comparative analysis with different production techniques. Therefore, we
compared the environmental performances of a NSP kiln (baseline
scenario) with shaft kiln (scenario 41). The process data of shaft
kiln cement production is derived from previous research [3].

Fig. 7. Comparison of environmental performance of corn straw substitution in

producing 1 tonne of cement.

4.2. Scenario analysis

The comparison of LCA results for 1 unit of cement production
using limestone, carbide slag, and the mixture of carbide slag and
limestone slag as raw materials is listed in Table 5. As the

environmental impacts exerted by the mining of limestone are

avoided, using carbide slag as raw material has a better
environmental performance in all categories compared with
limestone, the larger the proportion of substitution, the better

Please cite this article in press as: Song D et al. Life-cycle environmental impact analysis of a typical cement production chain. Appl Energy (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.003

D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxxxxx

Table 6
The environmental performance of installing heat recovery and cogeneration system (unit: kg).

Baseline
Scenario 31
Difference

ADP
Antimony eq

GWP
CO2-eq

ODP
CFC-11 eq

HTP
1,4-DCB-eq

FAETP
1,4-DCB-eq

MAETP
1,4-DCB-eq

AP
SO2-eq

POCP
C2H4-eq

EP
PO4-eq

TETP
1,4-DCB-eq

2.74E+00
2.53E+00
2.11E 01

7.01E+08
6.73E+08
2.79E+07

6.35E 01
5.87E 01
4.80E 02

9.13E+05
8.82E+05
3.11E-+04

5.31E+05
5.09E+05
2.14E+04

4.60E+08
4.21E+08
3.96E+07

2.59E+06
2.45E+06
1.41E+05

1.32E+05
1.28E+05
3.85E+03

1.64E+05
1.54E+05
9.92E+03

1.36E+04
1.24E+04
1.24E+03

the environmental performance. The mixture of carbide slag and

limestone slag for cement production is also environmental beneficiary compared with the baseline scenario. It implies that waste
co-processing in cement production is a promising alternative in
reducing industrial solid waste and releasing environmental
impact from cement production.
Normalizing all the environmental impacts based on the reference emissions of the world in 2000 [30], the environmental benefit of raw material substitution is decomposed to different stages
of cement production. Fig. 5 reflects the differences of baseline and
scenario 13. Positive values indicate environmental benefits of
scenario 13 compared with baseline while negative values represent extra environmental impacts due to the use of carbide slag.
Less electricity is consumed for limestone mining, which results
in prominent environmental benefits. Also, a large amount of
GHG emissions from calcium carbonate decomposition is avoided
in the calcination stage. Transportation also contributes to the
environmental benefit as the weight of carbide slag used is lighter
than that of substituted limestone. However, using carbide slag to
substitute limestone increases the environmental emissions in the
raw material preparation stage due to the electricity consumption
for the drying of carbide slag, which makes the environmental benefit of carbide slag substitution not prominent.
Fig. 6 reflects the differences of baseline and scenario 23. The
results are quite similar with those shown in Fig. 5. The utilization
of industrial wastes of carbide slag and limestone slag reduces
energy consumption of limestone mining, resulting in prominent
environmental benefits. Also, a large amount of GHG emissions
in the calcination stage is avoided. However, the GWP reduction
benefit of scenario 23 is smaller than that of scenario 13. In
the raw meal preparation stage, there are also extra environmental
impacts posed in scenario 23, but is much smaller compared with
that in scenario 13 as less electricity is consumed in carbide slag
drying in raw meal preparation. In addition, Figs. 5 and 6 show that
the largest environmental benefits brought by raw material substitution lie on MAETP, POCP, AP, GWP, and FAETP.
The comparison of LCA results for cement production using coal
(baseline) and corn straw (scenario 31 to 33) as fuels is shown in
Fig. 7 (normalized to dimensionless), which indicates that corn
straw as a substitution of coal has a prominent environmental benefit in categories of GWP, HTP, AP, POCP, and EP compared with the
baseline. The larger the proportion of substitution, the better
the environmental performance. This environmental benefit can
be attributed to the reduced coal consumption, which is one of
the largest contributors of environmental emissions. Compared
with baseline, the GWP, HTP, AP, POCP, and EP in the calcination
stage of scenario 33 (50% substitution) decrease by 12.20%,
48.00%, 46.84%, 48.12%, and 46.19%, respectively. However, as the
weight of corn straw used is heavier than that of coal (the LHV of
corn straw is lower than that of coal, resulting in more corn straw
is required to generate the same amount of heat), extra environmental impacts is generated in the transportation stage.
When the heat recovery and cogeneration system is installed in
cement production line, it can supply additional electricity generated from exhausted heat and reduce electricity input from the
grid. The environmental impacts induced by electricity consumption in baseline and scenario 31 are presented in Table 6. There

Fig. 8. Comparison of environmental performances of NSP kiln and shaft kiln in

producing 1 tonne of cement.

is 3.04  107 kW h electricity generated from exhausted heat per

year. Extracting auxiliary power consumption, 2.80  107 kW h
electricity could be supplied for cement production. Table 6 shows
that there is a prominent environmental benefit using waste heat
for electricity generation. The environmental impacts in EP, ADP,
ODP, MAETP, and TETP are reduced by 6.06%, 7.71%, 7.55%, 8.61%,
and 9.07%, respectively, demonstrating that heat recovery and
cogeneration plays an important role in the mitigation of
environmental influences.
Fig. 8 shows the environmental performances of cement production using shaft kiln and NSP kiln (value 100 for the NSP kiln).
Although shaft kiln has a relatively low energy cost, the available
calcium content and cement output of shaft kiln are much lower
than those of NSP kiln [35]. NSP kiln process with multi-stage
precalciners is thus more energy efficient and has lower environmental impact in producing 1 unit of cement compared with shaft
kiln process. Compared with shaft kiln, the most prominent environmental benefit of NSP kiln exists in HTP, AP, POCP, and EP.

5. Conclusions
This study highlighted the lifetime environmental impacts of a
2500 t/d NSP cement production chain. The results derived from
the LCA can be used to quantify the system performance of cement
production in terms of environmental aspect and minimize the
negative environmental impacts from cement production. Scenario
analysis also informs the pro and cons of introducing best available
technologies in cement production, which may shed light on the
management of cement production process.
The cement production has a prominent impact on global
warming, acidification, and photochemical oxidation. The largest
environmental emissions, especially GHG emissions, are generated
in the calcination stage, from both calcium carbonate decomposition and coal consumption. Therefore, finding raw material and
fuel substitutions is a potential way to reduce environmental emissions. Wastes and by-products that contain usable minerals such
as calcium, silica, aluminum oxide, and iron oxide can be used to
replace limestone, clay and shale in cement production. Grinding

Please cite this article in press as: Song D et al. Life-cycle environmental impact analysis of a typical cement production chain. Appl Energy (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.003

D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxxxxx

is the second largest contributor of environmental emissions, as it

is the largest electricity consumer in the whole process. It is therefore another control point of energy saving and emission reduction
in cement production. Heat recovery and cogeneration technology
is a possible way to reduce electricity input from the grid and its
related embodied emissions in electricity generation.
Based on the LCA results, scenarios of using raw material and
fuel substitutions and best available technologies in cement production are designed. In raw material substitution scenarios, the
environmental benefits from carbide slag substitution are not
prominent. Although parts of emissions in the limestone mining
and calcium carbonate decomposition are avoided compared with
the baseline, extra electricity is consumed for the drying of carbide
slag. Nevertheless, it is still a potential way to dispose and reuse
carbide slag waste. Also, the use of limestone slag that is another
industrial waste to substitute limestone as raw material is also
an environmental beneficial solution. Applying corn straw to substitute coal brings about notable environmental benefits, with
emissions in all categories decrease owing to less coal combustion.
However, additional energy is required for the collection and
transportation of corn straw. A well-designed corn straw transportation network with the least energy, labor and monetary input
is the key in alleviating the environmental impacts from corn straw
substitution.
As electricity is a main contributor of environmental impacts of
cement production, using cogeneration to compensate electricity
demand is an efficient way in reducing the environmental impact
of electricity consumption in cement production. The installation
of heat recovery and cogeneration system can mitigate about 10%
of environmental impact of cement production at most of the concerned categories. Nevertheless, heat recovery and cogeneration is
a promising technology in cement industry in terms of environmental feasibility. The comparison of shaft kiln and NSP kiln
cement production lines show that NSP kiln cement production
technology is more advantageous in releasing environmental burden in alleviating environmental burden. These results will be
helpful for policymakers on selecting environmentally-friendly
and best available technologies in cement industry.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Fund for Creative Research
Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.
51121003), National Key Technology R&D Program (No.
2012BAK30B03), and Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral
Program of Higher Education of China (No. 20130003110027).
The authors are also grateful for the financial support from the
Energy Foundation-Beijing Office (Grant No. G-1407-21749) on
Research and Application on Big Data on Environment and Energy
in the Chinese Industrial Sector.
References
[1] CMIIT (Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) [Internet].
The 12th Five Year Plan of cement industry. c2011b-[10.10.2014]. <http://
www.miit.gov.cn/n11293472/n11293832/n11293907/n11368223/14335483.
html>.
[2] USGS (U.S. Geological Survey). Mineral Commodity Summaries 2013. United
States Government Printing Office, Washington; 2013.
[3] Chen W, Hong JL, Xu CQ. Pollutants generated by cement production in China,
their impacts, and the potential for environmental improvement. J Clean Prod
2014;103:619.
[4] Ministry of Environmental Protection, Peoples Republic of China. Bulletin on
the environmental condition of China in 2009; 2010 [In Chinese].
[5] Scrivener KL, Kirkpatrick RJ. Innovation in use and research on cementitious
material. Cem Concr Res 2008;38:12836.

[6] Rehan R, Nehdi M. Carbon dioxide emissions and climate change: policy
implications for the cement industry. Environ Sci Policy 2005;8(2):10514.
[7] Josa A, Aguado A, Cardim A, Byars E. Comparative analysis of the life cycle
impact assessment of available cement inventories in the EU. Cem Concr Res
2007;37(5):7818.
[8] Hu D, Guo Z, Wang Z, Xiao Q. Metabolism analysis and eco-environmental
impact assessment of two typical cement production systems in Chinese
enterprises. Ecol Inform 2015;26:707.
[9] Boesch ME, Koehler A, Hellweg S. Model for cradle-to-gate life cycle
assessment of clinker production. Environ Sci Technol 2009;43:757883.
[10] Boesch ME, Hellweg S. Identifying improvement potentials in cement
production with life cycle assessment. Environ Sci Technol 2010;44:91439.
[11] Gbel K, Forsberg P, Tillmann AM. The design and building of a life-cycle based
process model for simulating environmental performance, product
performance and cost in cement manufacturing. J Clean Prod 2004;12:7793.
[12] Huntzinger DN, Eatmon TD. A life-cycle assessment of Portland
cement manufacturing: comparing the traditional process with alternative
technologies. J Clean Prod 2009;17:66875.
[13] Marceau ML, Nisbet MA, Van Geem MG. Life cycle inventory of Portland
cement manufacture. Skokie, IL: Portland Cement Association [PCA]; 2006.
[14] Li C, Nie Z, Cui S, Gong X, Wang Z, Meng X. The life cycle inventory study of
cement manufacture in China. J Clean Prod 2014;72:20411.
[15] Reza B, Soltani A, Ruparathna R, Sadiq R, Hewage K. Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel in
cement plants: A case study of Metro Vancouver Waste Management. Resour
Conserv Recycl 2013;81:10514.
[16] Valderrama C, Granados R, Cortina JL, Gasol CM, Guillem M, Josa A.
Comparative LCA of sewage sludge valorisation as both fuel and raw
material substitute in clinker production. J Clean Prod 2013;51:20513.
[17] Saade MRM, Gomes da Silva M, Gomes V. Appropriateness of environmental
impact distribution methods tomodel blast furnace slag recycling in cement
making. Resour Conserv Recy 2015;99:407.
[18] Gbel K, Tillmann AM. Simulating operational alternatives for future cement
production. J Clean Prod 2005;13:124657.
[19] Hong JL, Li XZ. Environmental assessment of sewage sludge as secondary raw
material in cement production a case study in China. Waste Manage
2011;31:136471.
[20] Crossin E. The greenhouse gas implications of using ground granulated blast
furnace slag as a cement substitute. J Clean Prod 2015;95:1018.
[21] Navia R, Rivela B, Lorber KE, Mndez R. Recycling contaminated soil as
alternative raw material in cement facilities: life cycle assessment. Resour
Conserv Recycl 2006;48:33956.
[22] Valderrama C, Granados R, Cortina JL, Gasol CM, Guillem M, Josa A.
Implementation of best available techniques in cement manufacturing: a
life-cycle assessment study. J Clean Prod 2012;25:607.
[23] Van den Heede P, De Belie N. Environmental impact and life cycle assessment
(LCA) of traditional and green concretes: literature review and theoretical
calculations. Cem Concr Comp 2012;34:43142.
[24] Galvez-Martosa JL, Schoenberger H. An analysis of the use of life cycle
assessment for waste co-incineration in cement kilns. Resour Conserv Recy
2014;86:11831.
[25] Garca-Gusano D, Garran D, Herrera I, Cabal H, Lechn Y. Life cycle assessment
of applying CO2 post-combustion capture to the Spanish cement production. J
Clean
Prod
2013.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.11.056.
Forthcoming.
[26] Chen C, Habert G, Bouzidi Y, Jullien A. Environmental impact of cement
production: detail of the different processes and cement plant variability
evaluation. J Clean Prod 2010;18:47885.
[27] ISO. ISO 14040 International Standard. In: Environmental management life
cycle assessment principles and framework. Geneva, Switzerland:
International Organisation for Standardization; 2006.
[28] IKE, SCU-ISCP, Chinese Life Cycle Database (CLCD). IKE Environmental
Technology Co., Ltd. & Institute for Sustainable Consumption and Production
at Sichuan University. <http://www.itke.com.cn>.
[29] Guine JB, Gorre M, Heijungs R, Huppes G, Kleijn R, Koning de A, et al.
Handbook on Life Cycle Assessment Operational Guide to the ISO
Standards. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2002.
[30] CML
[Internet].
CML-IA
Characterisation
Factors.c2013-[cited
27.10.14]. Available from: <http://cml.leiden.edu/software/data-cmlia.
html#downloads>.
[31] Wang YL, Dong SJ, Liu LL, Cui SP. Using calcium carbide slag as one of calciumcontaining raw materials to produce cement clinker. Mater Sci Forum
2013;743744:1714.
[32] Mokrzycki E, Uliasz-Bochenczyk A. Alternative fuels for the cement industry.
Appl Energy 2003;74(1):95100.
[33] Mokrzycki E, Uliasz-Bochenczyk A, Sarna M. Use of alternative fuels in the
Polish cement industry. Appl Energy 2003;74(1):10111.
[34] Mikulcic H, Vujanovic M, Duic N. Reducing the CO2 emissions in Croatian
cement industry. Appl Energy 2013;101:418.
[35] Galitsky C, Price L. Opportunities for improving energy efficiency, reducing
pollution and increasing economic output in Chinese Cement Kilns. 2007
ACEEE summer study on energy efficiency in industry. Available from: <http://
aceee.org/files/proceedings/2007/data/papers/27_3_031.pdf>.

Please cite this article in press as: Song D et al. Life-cycle environmental impact analysis of a typical cement production chain. Appl Energy (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.003