Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

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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
b
NAAM Group, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
c
Department of Mathematics, Quaid-i-Azam University, 45320 Islamabad, Pakistan

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 a b s t r a c t

Article history: Cement is one of the three main construction materials, which provides support for other related indus-
Received 31 October 2014 tries and fuels the economic growth. However, cement production is also a high-polluting sector. In this
Received in revised form 1 July 2015 study, a life-cycle environmental assessment was performed for a typical new suspension preheater dry
Accepted 2 September 2015
process (NSP) cement production in China. A comparison of the life cycle environmental impact of best
Available online xxxx
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
Keywords:
largest contributor of environmental emissions in the cement production system, indirect sections, par-
Cement production
Life-cycle analysis
ticularly the downstream grinding section, play an important role in terms of environmental impact,
Raw material and fuel substitution which should be considered as the control point in achieving energy saving and emission reduction goal.
Best available technology Comparing the environmental performance of raw material and fuel substitution alternatives and best
Environmental emissions 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 pre-
vailing NSP kiln technology is more environmental beneficial compared with shaft kiln technology.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Cement industry provides an irreplaceable support for the oper-
ation of various downstream industries of Chinese economy. The
production of cement industry in China increased from 597 million
q billion kWh, which result in the atmospheric emissions of sulfur
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 China’s 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 environ-
ment. The total coal and electricity consumptions of the Chinese
cement industry in 2012 amounted to 208 million tons and 168
dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and particulates at 1.09 mil-
lion, 1.98 million and 0.67 million tons, respectively [3,4]. In addi-
tion, CO2 emissions of Chinese cement industry accounts for 5–8%
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/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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2 D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
concern in exploring its emission reduction potential [6,7]. Differ-
ent from other industries, cement production emits pollutions not
only via direct fossil fuel use, but also through the production pro-
cedure as indirect emission [8]. Therefore the whole process emis-
sion 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 product’s
life stages. Using LCA, many existing studies have been conducted
to evaluate the environmental impacts of cement production
chains [7,9–14]. However, in light of the expanding cement pro-
duction 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 technologi-
cal changes in the context of environmental impacts alleviation.
Currently, research on environmental impacts of fuel substitutions
[15,16], raw materials substitutions [17–21], and best available
technologies [3,12,22–26] 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 con-
tribute to energy saving and environmental emission reduction
should be explored to meet the more and more strict environmen-
tal protection goals.
This paper aims to undertake a lifetime environmental assess-
ment of a typical 2500 t/d new suspension preheater dry process
(NSP) cement production line in China, and compare its environ-
mental 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 sec-
tions 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 pre-
sented 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 selec-
tion of cement production technological pathways.
2. Methodology
LCA is a tool to assess the potential environmental impacts and
resources used throughout a product’s lifetime, i.e., from raw
material acquisition, via production and use phases, to waste man-
agement [27]. Based on ISO 14040 standard, there are four major
steps of an LCA of cement production, i.e., (1) define the assess-
ment goal and system boundary; (2) compile the life-cycle inven-
tory; (3) conduct the life-cycle impact assessment of the product/
technology; and (4) interpret, summarize, analyze and communi-
cate the results. In this section, the LCA method of cement produc-
tion is elaborated based on the steps aforementioned.
2.1. Goal and scope definition
The goal of this study is to appraise the environmental perfor-
mances 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 cra-
dle 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
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
applications later. Therefore, the whole cradle to gate process
within system boundary include mining, transportation of raw
materials, crushing, preblending, grinding, homogenization, pre-
heating 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, transporta-
tion, 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 con-
venient transportation network. Motor transportation is used for
raw material and products delivery, starting from the manufac-
turer 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 crush-
ing, preblending of sandstone, raw material grinding, fuel pre-
blending and grinding. In this stage, electricity is used to drive
equipment of crusher, belt conveyor, stacker–reclaimer, 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 envi-
ronmental 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 dust-
discharging fan. In this stage, electricity of 0.2 GW h is used for the
operation of bag filter and dust-discharging fan.
 D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 3

Global Warming Potential(GWP)

Background system
Mining
Acidification Potential (AP)
Transport
Clinker Eutrophication Potential (EP)

Environmental impact assessment

Energy
Photochemical Ozone Create
Cement
Potential (POCP)

Ozone Layer Depletion (ODP)

Raw material
Resource Abiotic Depletion(ADP)
preparation
depletion
Production process

Calcination Human Toxic Potential (HTP)

Waste gas
Freshwater Aquatic Ecotoxicity
Grinding
(FAETP)
Waste water Marine Aquatic Ecotoxicity
Packaging
(MAETP)

Waste soil Terrestrial Ecotoxicity (TETP)

Waste treatment

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 0.455 80% 6 (gpsum and clinker) < 95% 42.5 GB175–2007
P.F 42.5 Portland cement 0.578 60% 6 (gpsum and clinker)<80% 20% 6 fly ash < 40% 42.5 GB175–2007

Table 2 in Fig. 2. This figure comprises all non-fuel raw materials such as
Transportation of major materials. limestone (0.92 million tonnes), sandstone, flyash, surfuric acid
residue (0.29 million metric tonnes) together with gypsum
Materials Quantity Quantity (ton/day) Distance (km)
(million ton/yr) (0.24 million metric tonnes). At the raw material preparation stage,
approximately 1.22 million tonnes materials were consumed, of
Limestone 0.96 3095.96 1.5
Sandstone 0.13 434.90 2.0 which limestone is the major input. All prepared raw material
Flyash 0.09 305.56 3.1 together with mixtures (0.23 million metric tonnes) are then deliv-
Sulfur acid residue 0.02 61.86 232 ered to the calcination process. The outputs of calcination are P.
Mixtures 0.20 661.87 3.1 O42.5 (0.46 million metric tonnes) and P.F42.5 (0.58 million metric
Raw coal 0.12 398.44 33
Gypsum 0.04 115.57 70
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
2.2.6. Grinding and packaging for transportation of raw materials and product. Electricity is
According to the specification of P.O42.5 cement and P.F42.5 mainly used for cement grinding (34.7 GW h), followed by calcina-
cement, the output mixture from the calcination stage is mixed tion (27 GW h) and raw material preparation (19.6 GW h). Waste
with gypsum for grinding. The cement produced after grinding is treatment and mining only constitute a negligible part of electric-
then delivered to the packing machine. The electricity consumed ity consumption.
in the grinding and packaging stage is 34.7 GW h and 0.1 GW h,
respectively.
2.3. Life cycle environmental assessment

2.2.7. Others
Others refer to electricity consumption that support the opera-
tion of the whole cement plant except for the electricity consump-
tion mentioned in the aforementioned stages.
2.2.8. Diagram the LCA inventory
The material and energy inputs are diagramed to vividly illus-
trate the material flow in the cement production system, as shown
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 anti-
mony 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

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

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 environmen-
tal emissions in all impact categories. Transportation has a promi-
nent 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 rank-
ings 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 lar-
ger compared with other environmental impact categories, fol-
lowed 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 GWP ODP HTP FAETP MAETP AP POCP EP TETP

Antimony eq CO2-eq CFC-11 eq 1,4-DCB-eq 1,4-DCB-eq 1,4-DCB-eq SO2-eq C2H4-eq PO4-eq 1,4-DCB-eq
Mining 1.97E 06 1.65E+01 3.65E 07 8.94E 02 3.25E 01 3.03E+02 8.51E 02 1.77E 02 1.04E 02 8.95E 03
Transportation 1.59E 08 1.16E+00 9.92E 08 6.88E 04 1.21E 01 1.75E+01 2.32E 02 6.00E 03 4.30E 03 3.52E 04
Raw meal preparation 1.44E 07 1.89E+01 3.26E 08 2.11E 02 1.46E 02 2.69E+01 9.60E 02 2.61E 03 6.74E 03 8.40E 04
Calcination 1.97E 07 5.99E+02 4.48E 08 7.25E 01 2.00E 02 3.70E+01 2.09E+00 9.55E 02 1.22E 01 1.16E 03
Waste gas treatment 8.98E 10 1.19E 01 2.04E 10 1.32E 04 9.10E 05 1.68E 01 6.00E 04 1.63E 05 4.22E 05 5.25E 06
Grinding 2.54E 07 3.35E+01 5.77E 08 3.73E 02 2.57E 02 4.76E+01 1.70E 01 4.62E 03 1.19E 02 1.49E 03
Packaging 1.16E 09 1.53E 01 2.64E 10 1.71E 04 1.18E 04 2.18E 01 7.76E 04 2.11E 05 5.45E 05 6.79E 06
Others 6.79E 08 8.97E+00 1.54E 08 9.99E 03 6.89E 03 1.27E+01 4.54E 02 1.24E 03 3.19E 03 3.98E 04
Total 2.65E 06 6.78E+02 6.15E 07 8.83E 01 5.14E 01 4.45E+02 2.51E+00 1.28E 01 1.59E 01 1.32E 02

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 D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 5

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

Normalized impact
1.60E-011 material in the raw meal, or in the cement grinding as substitutes
1.40E-011 for clinker or cement additives [18]. Carbide slag, generated from
calcium carbide acetylene method with main component of Ca
1.20E-011
(OH)2, is a prevailing raw material used for raw material substitu-
1.00E-011 tion in cement manufactory. As carbide slag is difficult for disposal
8.00E-012
and exerts great pressure on the environment, using carbide slag
for cement manufactory is one of the most efficient ways for waste
6.00E-012 reuse. Currently, carbide slag has already been used to 100% substi-
4.00E-012 tute limestone [31]. However, carbide slag has a high water con-
tent (8%) even after concentration in sedimentation tank.
2.00E-012
Although direct environmental emissions from calcination may
0.00E+000 be reduced using carbide slag as substitution in cement produc-
ADP GWP ODP HTP FAETP MAETP TETP POCP AP EP
tion, extra electricity is consumed in the drying of carbide slag.
Impact categories In this scenario, keeping the cement output unchanged, the
amount of carbide slag that can substitute 50% (scenario 1–1),
Fig. 3. Normalized environmental impacts of producing 1 tonne of cement.
80% (scenario 1–2) and 100% (scenario 1–3) of CaO in limestone
was assumed as raw material.
mainly from calcination (3.84%), grinding, which occupies 4.94% of In addition, new technology of mixing limestone slag with car-
the total emission and mining (occupies 2.43%) to the whole pro- bide slag as raw material substitution has also been applied to
cess. For the material transportation, as all kinds of raw material reduce the raw material limestone input (the composition of car-
and fuel resources can be obtained nearby due to the location, it bide slag and limestone slag is shown in Table 4). The combined
has less GHG emissions compared with other stages, of which utilization of carbide slag and limestone slag as raw material sub-
transport of sulfuric acid slag, coal, gypsum occupied larger pro- stitution can thereby not only reduce limestone input in cement
portion due to its long distance. production, but also synergistically dispose industrial waste. To
evaluate the environmental performance of raw material substitu-
tion using the mixture of carbide slag and limestone slag, keeping
4. Scenario analysis
the cement output unchanged, 3 scenarios, i.e., 90% carbide slag
and 10% limestone slag (scenario 2–1), 80% carbide slag and 20%
The results reveal that calcination is the largest contributor of
limestone slag (scenario 2–2), and 70% carbide slag and 30% lime-
environmental emissions. Thus, improvement of calcination pro-
stone slag (scenario 2–3), are designed to replace high quality
cess by using advanced technologies is a possible way to reduce
limestone.
material use and environmental emissions of cement production.
In this section, scenarios of two raw meal mixes, a fuel substitu-
4.1.2. Fuel substitutions
tion, and a heat recovery and cogeneration technology are hypo-
The energy-intensiveness of cement production processes and
thetically designed. Also, the environmental performances of
increasing fuel prices, combined with fuel deficit, force the cement
cement production by NSP kiln and shaft kiln are compared.
industry to search for technologies based on waste-derived and
alternative fuels [32]. The results in Section 3 also reveal that coal
4.1. Scenarios setting
is one of the largest contributors in the cement production chain.
To cut energy costs and reduce emissions from fuel combustion,
4.1.1. Raw material substitutions
attentions are paid on finding fuel alternatives. Currently, the uti-
Industrial by-products (e.g., slag, fly ash, industrial gypsum, and
lization of fuel substitutions in cement production has already
industrial sand) can be used as substitutes for traditional natural
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 con-
600
tent and carbon neutral property. To probe into the lifetime pro
500 Indirect emissions
and cons using straw as fuel substitution, keeping the cement out-
400 Direct emissions
put unchanged, the amount of corn straw that equivalent to 20%
300 (scenario 2–1), 30% (scenario 2–2) and 50% (scenario 2–3) low
200 heating value (LHV) of coal is supposed as fuel to substitute coal
100 in calcination.
kg/t

30
4.1.3. Heat recovery and cogeneration
According to the aforementioned LCA results, electricity is a
20 main driver of the NSP cement production. The expanding demand
on cement thereby enlarges the electricity supply in cement pro-
10
duction industry. Efforts have been made to recover waste (300–
0 400 °C) heat from the kiln gases (preheater exit gas) and cooler
exhaust air for power generation in NSP cement production line.
Mining

Raw meal preparation

Package

Others
Transport

Waste gas treatment

Calcination

Grinding

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
Fig. 4. GHG emissions of different stages of cement production. powers a turbine that creates electricity for cement production.

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Table 4
The composition of carbide slag and limestone slag.

SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 CaO MgO SO3 K2O Na2O Cl Loss

Carbide slag 3.38 1.30 0.24 68.90 0.06 0.39 0.03 0.08 0.01 25.61
Limestone slag 2.15 0.35 0.05 51.57 2.01 0.06 0.03 0.04 0.0004 43.55

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

ADP GWP ODP HTP FAETP MAETP AP POCP EP TETP

Antimony eq CO2-eq CFC-11 eq 1,4-DCB-eq 1,4-DCB-eq 1,4-DCB-eq SO2-eq C2H4-eq PO4-eq 1,4-DCB-eq
Baseline 2.65E 06 6.78E+02 6.15E 07 8.83E 01 5.14E 01 4.45E+02 2.51E+00 1.28E 01 1.59E 01 1.32E 02
Scenario 1–1 1.95E 06 6.73E+02 5.31E 07 8.45E 01 3.54E 01 3.20E+02 2.48E+00 1.21E 01 1.54E 01 1.08E 02
Scenario 1–2 1.52E 06 6.70E+02 4.81E 07 8.23E 01 2.59E 01 2.45E+02 2.47E+00 1.17E 01 1.52E 01 9.43E 03
Scenario 1–3 1.24E 06 6.67E+02 4.48E 07 8.07E 01 1.95E 01 1.94E+02 2.46E+00 1.14E 01 1.50E 01 8.49E 03
Scenario 2–1 1.24E 06 6.70E+02 4.48E 07 8.07E 01 1.95E 01 1.94E+02 2.46E+00 1.14E 01 1.50E 01 8.49E 03
Scenario 2–2 1.24E 06 6.72E+02 4.48E 07 8.07E 01 1.96E 01 1.94E+02 2.46E+00 1.14E 01 1.50E 01 8.48E 03
Scenario 2–3 1.24E 06 6.74E+02 4.48E 07 8.07E 01 1.96E 01 1.94E+02 2.46E+00 1.14E 01 1.50E 01 8.47E 03

TETP
TETP EP
EP POCP
POCP
Calcination
Calcination AP
AP MAETP
MAETP
FAETP FAETP
HTP HTP
ODP Raw meal preparation ODP
GWP GWP
Raw meal preparation ADP
ADP

Transportation
Transportation

Mining

Mining
0.00E+000 2.00E-013 1.20E-012 1.40E-012

0.00E+000 2.00E-013 1.20E-012 1.40E-012 Fig. 6. Differences of environmental impacts of baseline and scenario 2–3 in
producing 1 tonne of cement.
Fig. 5. Differences of environmental impacts of baseline and scenario 1–3 in
producing 1 tonne of cement.

In this scenario (scenario 3–1), 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 consump-
tion, 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 propor-
tion 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 transforma-
tion and the heated concern on environmental issues in cement
production industry, it is of great importance to conduct a compar-
ative analysis with different production techniques. Therefore, we
compared the environmental performances of a NSP kiln (baseline
scenario) with shaft kiln (scenario 4–1). The process data of shaft
Fig. 7. Comparison of environmental performance of corn straw substitution in
kiln cement production is derived from previous research [3]. producing 1 tonne of cement.

4.2. Scenario analysis

environmental impacts exerted by the mining of limestone are
The comparison of LCA results for 1 unit of cement production avoided, using carbide slag as raw material has a better
using limestone, carbide slag, and the mixture of carbide slag and environmental performance in all categories compared with
limestone slag as raw materials is listed in Table 5. As the 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) xxx–xxx 7

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

ADP GWP ODP HTP FAETP MAETP AP POCP EP TETP

Antimony eq CO2-eq CFC-11 eq 1,4-DCB-eq 1,4-DCB-eq 1,4-DCB-eq SO2-eq C2H4-eq PO4-eq 1,4-DCB-eq
Baseline 2.74E+00 7.01E+08 6.35E 01 9.13E+05 5.31E+05 4.60E+08 2.59E+06 1.32E+05 1.64E+05 1.36E+04
Scenario 3–1 2.53E+00 6.73E+08 5.87E 01 8.82E+05 5.09E+05 4.21E+08 2.45E+06 1.28E+05 1.54E+05 1.24E+04
Difference 2.11E 01 2.79E+07 4.80E 02 3.11E-+04 2.14E+04 3.96E+07 1.41E+05 3.85E+03 9.92E+03 1.24E+03

the environmental performance. The mixture of carbide slag and

limestone slag for cement production is also environmental bene-
ficiary 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 refer-
ence emissions of the world in 2000 [30], the environmental ben-
efit of raw material substitution is decomposed to different stages
of cement production. Fig. 5 reflects the differences of baseline and
scenario 1–3. Positive values indicate environmental benefits of
scenario 1–3 compared with baseline while negative values repre-
sent 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 ben-
efit of carbide slag substitution not prominent.
Fig. 6 reflects the differences of baseline and scenario 2–3. 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 2–3 is smaller than that of scenario 1–3. In
the raw meal preparation stage, there are also extra environmental
impacts posed in scenario 2–3, but is much smaller compared with
that in scenario 1–3 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 substi-
tution lie on MAETP, POCP, AP, GWP, and FAETP.
The comparison of LCA results for cement production using coal
(baseline) and corn straw (scenario 3–1 to 3–3) as fuels is shown in
Fig. 7 (normalized to dimensionless), which indicates that corn
straw as a substitution of coal has a prominent environmental ben-
efit 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 3–3 (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 environ-
mental 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 gener-
ated from exhausted heat and reduce electricity input from the
grid. The environmental impacts induced by electricity consump-
tion in baseline and scenario 3–1 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 pro-
duction 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 environ-
mental impact in producing 1 unit of cement compared with shaft
kiln process. Compared with shaft kiln, the most prominent envi-
ronmental 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 decomposi-
tion and coal consumption. Therefore, finding raw material and
fuel substitutions is a potential way to reduce environmental emis-
sions. 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
8 D. Song et al. / Applied Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
is the second largest contributor of environmental emissions, as it
is the largest electricity consumer in the whole process. It is there-
fore 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 pro-
duction 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 sub-
stitute 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 trans-
portation 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 con-
cerned categories. Nevertheless, heat recovery and cogeneration is
a promising technology in cement industry in terms of environ-
mental 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 bur-
den 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”.
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