Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 1004–1012

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Quantifying CO2 emissions from China’s cement industry

Weiguo Shen a,b,c,n, Liu Cao b, Qiu Li b,c, Wensheng Zhang d, Guiming Wang a,b,c,
Chaochao Li a,b
a
State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architecture, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
b
School of Material Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
c
WUT-UC Berkeley Joint Laboratory on Concrete Science and Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
d
State Key Laboratory of Green Building Materials, China Building Materials Academy, Beijing 100024, China

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Cement is the most widely used material and contributes around 8% to the global anthropogenic CO2
Received 9 December 2013 emissions. In 2011 China produced 2.085 Gt cement (60% of the cement production of the world) but the
Received in revised form carbon emission from cement industry still not accurately assessed. The LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) method
7 December 2014
was employed to thoroughly estimate China’s cement industry CO2 emissions, and results indicated that the
Accepted 9 May 2015
Available online 6 June 2015
carbon emissions of Portland cement clinker, Portland cement, and average cement in China are lower than
developed countries. In 2011, the direct CO2 emission factor and manufactured CO2 emission factor of China’s
Keywords: average cement manufacture is just 0.4778 t/t and 0.5450 t/t, respectively, and the direct CO2 emission and
China manufacture CO2 emission from China’s cement industry is 0.9983 and 1.1364 Gt, respectively, from the life
Cement industry
cycle view, carbon emission of cement industry and the neat carbon emission from cement industry is just
Carbon emission
0.8553 and 0.6386 Gt respectively, the share of six carbon emission sources is calculated. The RMCO2 , FDCO2 ,
LCA
Emission reduction EDCO2 , total TDCO2 and CSCO2 counts 53.8%, 28.3%, 7.94% and 0.86%, respectively, 29.64% of those carbon
emission can be sink by carbonization during 100 years after it cast. The policies to close down outdated
facilities and improve recovery the waste heat significantly reduced carbon emission from cement industry,
through public, industrial, and technological policies. As the biggest cement producer and consumer in the
world, a holistic approach is proposed to slash the carbon emission of cement industry.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005
2. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1006
3. The assessment of CO2 emission from different sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1007
3.1. The raw material CO2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1007
3.2. Fuel derived emission carbon emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1007
3.3. Electricity derived CO2 emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1007
3.4. The transportation derived CO2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1007
3.5. The CO2 emission at concrete life cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1008
3.6. The carbon sinking by carbonation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1008
4. The carbon emission assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1009
4.1. The carbon emission in the life cycle of average cement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1009
4.2. The CO2 emission factors of China’s cement products. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1009
4.3. Carbon emission of China’s cement industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1010
4.4. The carbon reduction approach of China’s cement industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1010
5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1011
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1011

n
Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architecture, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. Tel.: þ 86 27 87395822;
fax: þ86 27 87641294.
E-mail address: shenwg@whut.edu.cn (W. Shen).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.05.031
1364-0321/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 1004–1012 1005

Nomenclature EFdiesel emission factors of diesel, (kg CO2/L)

Mi mass of material to produce 1 t of clinker during
RMCO2 raw material carbon emission (t CO2) process I (t)
MCaO share of the CaO in the clinker in mass (%) EDCO2 emission from the electricity consumption (t CO2)
MMgO share of the MgO in the clinker in mass (%) Eli electricity used in process i, (k Wh/t)
RCaCO3 calcium from calcium carbonate (%) EFelectricity emission factor of electricity consumption (kg CO2/
RMgCO3 magnesium from magnesium carbonate (%) kW h)
FDCO2 carbon emission from the fuel used to calcite (t CO2) TDCO2 transportation derived CO2 (t CO2)
P thermal energy consumption of the clinker (GJ/t FC fuel consumption of the transportation (in L/100 kt)
clinker) Di transportation distance of process I (kM)
Vdiesel diesel used during the cement manufacturing (liters) LCCO2 CO2 emission related to the concrete life cycle (t CO2)
EFcoal emission factors of standard coal (t CO2/t) SCCO2 CO2 sinking during the concrete service life (t CO2)

1. Introduction From 1985 to 2011 [5], the average annual growth rate of
China’s cement production was 10.7%. In 2007, half of the cement
As the world’s top CO2 emitter, China’s CO2 emission is of produced worldwide was produced by China (see Fig. 1). China’s
central concern in efforts to combat global climate change [1,2]. skyrocketing cement production was driven by the high urbaniza-
Cement manufacturing is a highly intensive energy consuming and tion rate that occurred from 1995 to 2011, when the urban
carbon emission industry. It is one of the major contributors to population increased to 0.284 billion. Urbanization had an annual
global anthropogenic CO2 emissions, contributing 7% of the growth rate of 4% during 2000  2005 [7] and 3.44% during 2005–
anthropogenic and 26% of the industrial carbon emission [3,4]. 2010, with the expectation that it will continue to increase at
With the rapid increase of the cement production (see Fig. 1), the rate higher than those of Vietnam (3.26%) and India (2.56%) [7].
technology of China’s cement industry has markedly improved, The rapid increase of cement production ensures the rapid
resulting in a decrease in the amount of energy consumed urbanization of China, it is anticipated that high production of
compared to the past. The lack of formal statistical data introduced China’s cement industry will maintain for a long time [5].
the tendency of overstating the levels of carbon emission of the
cement industry in China [5].
In January 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey issued their Mineral Table 1
The cement production and population and GDP of Countries.
Commodities Summary [6], which included a report on cement
production of China, the United States, and eighteen other coun- Country/Region Cement Population GDP Cement Cement
ties/regions (see Table 1). China produced 2.0 Gt of cement in 2011. production (Billion (Billion per per GDP
This figure is slightly lower than 2.085 Gt estimated by China (Million people) US capita (kg/
tonnes) dollars) (t) dollar)
Building Materials Union Associate [7] and the 2.06 Gt estimated
by China Cement Associate. The per capita cement production is PR China 2000 1341,335 11,300 1.49 0.177
1.55 t, which is three times of the worldwide average and eight
India 210 1224,614 4,458 0.17 0.047
times that of the United States (as of 2011), ranks at no. 2 just
behind Saudi Arabia, a rich petroleum exporting country. Taking in United 68.4 310,384 15,094 0.22 0.005
States
count of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of countries consid-
Turkey 64 72,752 1,074 0.88 0.060
ered [8], in China, 285 g of cement is used to obtain every one
Brazil 62.6 194,946 2,294 0.32 0.027
U.S. dollar GDP, which is more than 5.7 times of the world average
and 57 times of the data of U.S, only lower than that of Vietnam. Iran 52 31,672 990 1.64 0.053
Russia 52 142,958 2,383 0.36 0.022
Viet Nam 50 87,848 300 0.57 0.167

3600 Japan 47 126,536 4,440 0.37 0.011

3400
South 46 48,184 1,554 0.95 0.030
3200
China Korea
3000
World Egypt 45 81,121 519 0.55 0.087
2800
Cement preduction (million tonnes)

2600 Saudi 44 27,448 683 1.60 0.064

2400 Arabia
2200 Thailand 36 69,122 602 0.52 0.060
2000
1800 Mexico 35 113,423 1,662 0.31 0.021
1600 Italy 35 60,551 1,847 0.58 0.019
1400
1200 Germany 33 82,302 3,099 0.40 0.011
1000 Pakistan 30 173,593 489 0.17 0.061
800
600 Indonesia 22 239,871 1,125 0.09 0.020
400
Spain 20.7 46,077 1,413 0.45 0.015
200
0 Others 480 2396,658 23,571 0.20 0.020
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011

World 3400 6871,395 78,897 0.49 0.043

Year
Note: The cement production is from Ref. [6], the date of population is from Ref. [7]
Fig. 1. The cement production of world and China during 1994–2011. and the GDP data is from Ref. [8].
1006 W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 1004–1012
With the high production of cement, the carbon emission and
its reduction is attracted extensive interesting. Shen et al [9]
Factory-level measurements on CO2 emission factors of cement
production in China, and predict the CO2 emission will be
continually increasing will continuously increase before the
demand of cement may reach at its peak in the next 5 years, they
also made an analysis on differences of carbon dioxide emission
from cement production [10]; Ke estimate the CO2 emissions and
it’s developing tendency from China’s cement production [11]; Lei
also did a An inventory analysis of the primary air pollutants and
CO2 emissions from cement production in China during 1990–
2020 [12]; Wang made an integrated assessment of four CO2
reduction technologies in China’s cement industry including
alternative fuels, clinker substitution and CCS [13];the carbon
emission, the climate policies, life cycle inventory, impact and
improvement of pollutants, CO2 emissions reduction potential of
China cement industry is widely studied [14–18]. But the accurate
carbon emission especially the carbon emission form the life cycle
view still lack.
With the implement of the policies of National Development
and Reform Commission (NDRC), outmoded production facilities
e.g. shaft kiln, wet kiln and long dry kiln have been replaced by
new, large-scale production facilities that are highly efficient,
drastically reduce the carbon emission rate compared to 2005,
the change on the level of facilities is too fast to be simulated by
researchers, because lack of statistical data, the carbon emission of
China’s cement industry is overrated mostly by simulation [11,13],
so in this paper, a life cycle assessment is used to assess the
footprint of the China cement industry, six sources of carbon
emission from cement industry is calculated, and the carbon
emission from four perspectives is assessed, a holistic approach
with six steps is proposed to reduce the carbon emission of the
cement industry.
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the cement life cycle.
2. Methodology
The CO2 emissions from China’s cement industry were mea-
sured by life cycle assessment (LCA), which including raw materi-
als quarry, clinker calcination, cement manufacture, concrete
preparation, transportation, construction, application, and demoli-
tion (Fig. 2) [3,19,20]. The database on cement production was
obtained from the USGS [6], IEA [3], UN [7], IOR [21], IPCC [22], and
the China Cement Association [23]. The energy consumption of
cement raw materials quarried has been obtained from the U.S.
Department of Energy [24], while the energy and emission data on
concrete mixing, placing, and demolition has been obtained from
two master theses published from MIT [25] and Lund University
[26], respectively.
In today’s China, the types of equipment used on raw materials
of cement of concrete raw materials’ quarrying, concrete mixing,
concrete placing, and demolition are mostly large-scale modern
equipment, resulting in less energy consumption than ever, there-
fore, the carbon emissions in China in those processes are much
lower than before, for lack of statistic data, we use those data
[23–25] to replace the refer data of China cement industry, so the
results of our assessment may be a little bigger than the real
carbon emission of China cement industry. Whereas the amount of
CO2 emissions in those processes are just so small section in the
overall life cycle of cement that those replacements will not
impact the reliability of this assessment.
The assessment of the cement life-cycle carbon emissions is
studied on six separate resources: raw material CO2 (RMCO2 ) [27],
fuel-derived CO2 (FDCO2 ) [27], electricity-derived CO2 (EDCO2 ), trans-
portation CO2 (TDCO2 ), concrete life cycle CO2 (LCCO2 ), and carbon
sinking in concrete (SCCO2 ). The cement manufacture CO2 includes
RMCO2 , FDCO2 , EDCO2 and the part of TDCO2 relates to cement manu-
facture, the direct CO2 includes RMCO2 , FDCO2 because the EDCO2 and
 W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 1004–1012 1007

the part of TDCO2 are credited in the energy and transportation Table 2
industry already, the neat CO2 includes RMCO2 , FDCO2 and CSCO2 . The capacity share and the thermal energy consumption value of China’s cement
industry in 2011.

Size (t Number Production Thermal energy Chosen value

3. The assessment of CO2 emission from different sections clinker/ of klin share (%) (GJ/t clinker) (GJ/t clinker)
day)
3.1. The raw material CO2
Z 10,000 7 – 2.87–2.96 –
Z 7,200 10 2.05 2.9–3.0 2.95
The raw material carbon emission RMCO2 was calculated by Eq. (1).
6000–6500 17 2.14 2.9–3.0 2.95
44 44 4000–5000 501 48.15 2.9–3.05 2.97
RMCO2 ¼ MCaO   RCaCO3 þ MMgO   RMgCO3 ð1Þ 2700–4000 67 4.23 3.0–3.1 3.05
56 40
2000–2500 534 26.22 3.0–3.2 3.10
where MCaO and MMgO are the share of the CaO and MgO in the r 2000 269 6.21 3.1–3.2 3.15
clinker; RCaCO3 and RMgCO3 is the calcium and magnesium from calcium No-pre- – 11 3.3–6.6 3.70
and magnesium carbonate. The typical MCaO and MMgO in Portland calciner
Average – – – 3.10
cement clinker is 65% and 1.8%, respectively [28]. The RCaCO3 was set as
95%, because of various amounts of solid waste, e.g., carbide mud, fly
ash, and steel slag are used as calcium raw materials in China. Those
calcium raw materials do not yield CO2 during sintering. RMgCO3 was and it was calculated that the average thermal energy consump-
set as 75% because although most of Mg in calcium raw material is tion of clinker in China in 2011 is 3.10 GJ/t clinker (see Table 2).
from dolomite, the Mg in clay mainly comes from brucite. RMCO2 of There is no formal data for the fuel emission of onsite machinery
0.500 t CO2/t clinker was obtained from Eq. (1). At 2001, it was of China [24], so this data deduced from the cement production by
estimated that in the worldwide 0.500 t CO2/t clinker was produced different capability kilns of is used.
[29]. In China, because the sulphoaluminate cement (which counts
0.8% of the cement production) needs less limestone, phosphogypsum 3.3. Electricity derived CO2 emission
is used to produce cement and sulfuric acid. Therefore, the average
value of RMCO2 in China’s cement industry should be smaller than EDCO2 is the emission from the electricity consumption during
0.500 t/t clinker. cement production, including quarrying, crushing of raw materi-
als, grinding of raw meal, and calcination of clinker, finishing with
3.2. Fuel derived emission carbon emission the grinding and packing of cement.
X
FDCO2 is the carbon emission from the fuel used to calcite the EDCO2 ¼ Mi  Eli  EFelectricity ð3Þ
cement clinker and from the onsite machinery (the fuel required
to transport the raw materials was not included, it will included in where Mi is the mass of material produced from 1 t of clinker
FDCO2 ). It is can be calculated by Eq. (2). during process i, Eli the electricity used in process i, EFelectricity is
the emission factor of electricity consumption by kg CO2/kW h;
P according to IEA, as of 2011 in China this factor was 0.9746 [34], it
FDCO3 ¼  EFcoal þV diesel  EFdiesel =1000 ð2Þ
29:307 is higher than the data from Ref. [35]. The electricity used to
where FDCO2 is the fuel derived carbon emission, P is the thermal process the raw meal grinding and the finishing grinding, are
energy consumption of the clinker system including the kiln, pre- 12  22 kW h/t material and 28 55, respectively [33].
heater and pre-calciner in GJ/t clinker, Vdiesel is the amount of Since 2000, the energy saving vertical roller press and roll bowl
diesel in liters used by the machine during the cement manufac- miller have been widely adopted, with the raw materials and finishing
turing. EFcoal and EFdiesel are the emission factors of standard coal grinding being 18 and 32, respectively, on average. In China, 80% of
and diesel; EFcoal is 2.4567 t CO2 emission/t [30] of standard coal; the suitable kilns use low-and-medium temperature cogeneration
and EFdiesel is 2.764 kg CO2 emission/L, respectively [25,26]. technology to recover the waste heat of kiln. Statistics showed that
The thermal energy demand for clinker process is governed by around 60% of clinker was produced by the kilns using this technol-
endothermic reactions of raw materials, with required temperatures ogy [5], saved 24 kW h/t clinker of electricity on average.
of up to 1450 1C for the formation of stable clinker phases; therefore
theoretical energy demand of 1.65 to 1.80 GJ/t clinker is needed to
complete the process [31]. A large amount of energy is consumed 3.4. The transportation derived CO2
during the process of clinker sintering. Depending on the moisture
content of raw materials, additional energy is required of about 0.2 to The transportation derived CO2 TDCO2 can be written as:
X
1.0 GJ/t clinker (corresponding to a moisture content of 3 to 15%), and TDCO2 ¼ Mi  Di  FC  EFdiesel ð4Þ
some input energy is lost through hot flue gas, the cooler stack, and
the kiln shell [32]. Such energy losses are dependent on type of kiln where FC is the fuel consumption of the transportation (around
used [31–33] and the size of the kiln; the pre-calciner kiln and large- 6.03 L/100 kt in China in 2011), and the Di is the distance of process i.
scale kilns are more thermally efficient, the dominant fuel-derived The cementitious materials can be shipped via highway, railway or
CO2 results from clinker sintering. ship. The average distance that raw materials travel is 10 km, where
In 2005, the share of cement produced by the new dry process gypsum and coal travel 300 km, mining mineral admixtures travel
(using a pre-heater and pre-calciner kiln) was just around 45% 20 km, waste mineral admixtures travel 50 km, cement travels
[23], but after six years, 86.83% of clinker and 89% of cement is 80–120 km, and fresh concrete and demolished concrete travel
produced through this new dry process [5] at 2011. There were 10 30 50 km and 50 km, respectively. The fuel consumption is cur-
kilns operating with a capacity of 7200 t clinker/day each (includ- rently much higher than that found in other developed countries but
ing 7 kilns with capacity of 10,000 t clinker/day each), and more recent improvements in the highway system and the use of large-
than half of the cement produced used kilns capable of producing scale professional vehicles will reduce transportation costs. The
more than 4000 t clinker/day [5]. A new, recently designed kiln TDCO2 was calculated by separately taking into account the cement
has the thermal energy consumption around 2.95 GJ/t clinker [5], process and concrete life cycle, respectively. Table 3 lists the
1008 W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 1004–1012

Table 3
The calculation of transportation derived CO2 emission.

Product Process Materials Mass (t) Average distance (km) Diesel consumption (L/t km) emission factor (kg CO2/L) CO2 emission (t)

Clinker Cement Raw materials 1.49 10 6.03 2.764 0.00248

Cement Coal 0.14 500 6.03 2.764 0.01167
Portland cement Cement Raw materials 1.490 10 6.03 2.764 0.00248
Cement Coal 0.140 500 6.03 2.764 0.01167
Cement Gypsum 0.050 300 6.03 2.764 0.00250
Cement Mining mineral admixture 0.000 20 6.03 2.764 0.00000
Cement Waste mineral admixture 0.000 50 6.03 2.764 0.00000
Concrete Cement 1.000 120 6.03 2.764 0.02000
Concrete Fresh concrete 1.350 30 6.03 2.764 0.00675
Concrete Waste concrete 1.350 50 6.03 2.764 0.01125
Average cement Cement Raw materials 0.935 10 6.03 2.764 0.00156
Cement Coal 0.088 500 6.03 2.764 0.00732
Cement Gypsum 0.050 300 6.03 2.764 0.00250
Cement Mining mineral admixture 0.100 20 6.03 2.764 0.00033
Cement Waste mineral admixture 0.222 50 6.03 2.764 0.00185
Concrete Cement 1.000 80 6.03 2.764 0.01333
Concrete Fresh concrete 1.450 30 6.03 2.764 0.00725
Concrete Waste concrete 1.450 50 6.03 2.764 0.01208

Table 4
The CO2 emission calculation process of average cement of China at 2011.

Process Materials flow Material t/t Carbon type Fuel energy Electricity CO2 emission (t/t
cement (GJ/t) (kW h/t) cement)

Quarry Raw materialþ Gypsumþ coalþ mining mineral 1.167 Electricy 1.697 0.00193
Quarry admixture 1.167 Oil 0.02545 0.00205
Crush 1.167 Electricity 0.79 0.00090
Prehomogenization Raw material 0.928 Electricity 2.57 0.00233
Raw meal grinding Raw material 0.928 Electricity 15 0.01357
Coal grinding Coal 0.088 Electricity 30 0.00257
Calcination Clinker 0.627 Decarbonation 0.31368
Calcination Clinker 0.627 Coal 3.10 0.16302
Calcination Clinker 0.627 Electricity 23.8 0.01455
Waste heat Clinker 0.627 Electricity  24  0.01467
recovery
Waste air cleaning Clinker 0.627 Electricity 4.1 0.00252
Cement grinding Cement 1.000 Electricity 28 0.02729
Storing þ packing 1.000 Electricity 1.5 0.00146
Transportation Cement process Oil 0.01356
Mixing Cement þwater 1.450 Oilþ electricity 0.00058
Placing Cement paste 1.450 Oilþ electricity 0.00362
Demolition Cement paste 1.450 Oilþ electricity 0.00078
Transportation Concrete process Oil 0.03267
Carbon sink Clinker 0.627 Carbonation  0.17243

transportation derived CO2 emission of clinker, Portland cement, and
average cement in China in 2011.
3.5. The CO2 emission at concrete life cycle
To simplify the calculation process, this paper did not calculate
the CO2 emission related to the aggregates. But the water ensures
the workability of concrete and the hydration of cement and
strength development of concrete, it is reasonable to reckon the
emission of water in the emission of cement during concrete life
cycle. Therefore, material flow of the cement in the concrete life
cycle is the mass of the cement paste. It was reported that the
mixing, construction, and demolition of concrete yielded
0.0004 kg CO2/kg concrete, 0.0025 kg CO2/kg and 0.000538 kg
CO2/kg, respectively [25,26]. In China the average concrete has
average 28 day strength around 30MPa. Given that an average of
320 kg of cement is used in every cubic of concrete, the water/
cement ratio is 0.45. Then a mass of 1.45 t was used to calculate
the carbon emission of average cement during its concrete life
cycle. Portland cement, which is used to prepare high strength
concrete, has average dedicated 28 day strength of 60MPa. In
general, 450 kg of Portland cement is used in every cubic meter of
concrete, and the water cement ratio is around 0.35. A mass of
1.35 t (cement and water) was used to calculate the carbon
emission of Portland cement during its concrete life cycle.
3.6. The carbon sinking by carbonation
The CO2 sinking during the concrete service life or after land
filling by carbonation was calculated. Swedish scientists estimated
that 50  57% of CO2 generated during raw materials decarbona-
tion can be reabsorbed when it is carbonated in100 years [36]. In
this paper, 275 kg CO2/t clinker was chosen to represent the
carbon sink with carbonation during its service live and deposal
over a period of 100 years.
In this paper the cement manufacture direct, the cement
manufacture process, cement manufacture neat CO2 emission,
the cement life cycle emission are assessed, they are calculated
with equations of 5,6,7 and 8 repetitively.
Manufacure direct CO2 ¼ RMCO2 þ FDCO2 ð5Þ
Manufacture process CO2 emission ¼ RMCO2 þ FDCO2 þ EDCO2
þ TDCO2 ðcement produceÞ ð6Þ
 W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 1004–1012 1009

Material flow (t) 1.6 74

Quarry 72.9 clinker production
1.4 72
Quarry 70.6 clinker intensity

clinker intensity in cementy (%)

Clinker production (billion ton)
Crush 70

1.308
1.2 70.3 68.8
Prehomogenization
68

1.152
1.084
Raw meal grinding 1.0
Coal grinding 66

0.977
0.9567
0.8

0.8733
Calcination 65.8 64

0.779
Calcination 62.7
0.6
Calcination 62
Waste heat recovery 0.4 61.7
60
Waste air cleaning
Cement grinding 0.2 58
Storing & packing
0.0 56
Concrete mixing

2005

2007

2009

2011
Conrete palacing
Concrete demolition Year
Sink Fig. 5. The clinker and cement production of China from 2005 to 2011.
0.00

0.25

0.50

0.75

1.00

1.25

1.50

1.75

2.00

2.25

2.50
the average blend cement (average cement) is cement with 5% of
Raw materials(1.49) Coal(0.14) gypsum and average fraction of clinker, it is 62.7% in 2011. The
Gypsum(0.08) Mining mineral admixture(0.16) materials flow of the cement process is illustrated in Fig. 3, and the
Solid waste mineral admixture (0.354) Clinker (1.0) materials flow of clinker, Portland cement, and average cement are
Cement (1.594) Water (0.717)
illustrated in Fig. 4.
Cement paste (2.311)
China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)
Fig. 3. Material flow of the life cycle of average cement base by 1 t of clinker. [5], has instituted several new policies in recent years. Backward
production capacity facilities including vertical shaft kilns, long
Raw materials Coal dry kiln, wet kiln and even small sized pre-heater kiln have been
Gypsum Mining meneral admixture
banned to reduce the energy and electricity consumption of
Solid waste meneral admixture Clinker
Cement Water cement industry, those energy consumption and emission criteria
Cement paste are much lower than before. Fierce market competition and the
1.600 supporting policies encourage energy saving, with large-scale
1.400
plants replacing the backward capacity. Low- and medium-
temperature cogeneration technology is widely used to recover
1.200
the waste heat from the kiln, large amount of solid waste is used to
Material flow (ton)

1.000 produce blending cement and reduce the clinker intensity in

cement product [37]. Fig. 5 illustrated the clinker production and
0.800
the clinker intensity of China during 2005–2011, this because the
0.600 clinker produce with large scale kiln has higher strength than the
0.400 old kiln, so more mineral admixture is used to prepare cement
with equal strength. Note that the clinker intensity was just 62.8%
0.200
in 2011, which is even lower than the worldwide goal of 71% of
0.000
Clinker Portland cement avearge cement
roadmap of 2050 [3], this because there are more mineral
admixture with high hydration activity e.g. blast furnace slag
Fig. 4. Materials flow by 1 t of production. and fly ash in China, it is an effective approach to slash the CO2
emission to produce blend cement with high mineral content [38].
Manufacture Neat emission ¼ RMCO2 þFDCO2 þ EDCO2
þ TDCO2 ðcement produceÞ þ SCO2 ð7Þ 4.2. The CO2 emission factors of China’s cement products

Cement Life Cycle CO2 emission ¼ RMCO2 þ FDCO2 þ EDCO2 Based on the energy consumption, and the emission factors
þTDCO2 ðcement produceÞ þ LCCCO2 þ TDCO2 ðconcrete life cycleÞþ SCO2 listed in Table 4, by employing the related materials flow of Figs. 3
ð8Þ and 4, the carbon emission of the clinker, Portland cement and the
average cement in China was calculated, Table 5 lists their carbon
4. The carbon emission assessment emission factors. The clinker’s manufacture direct emission factor
is just 0.7628 t CO2/t, and its manufacture emission factor is
4.1. The carbon emission in the life cycle of average cement 0.8142 t CO2/t. The manufacture emission factor of Portland
cement was 0.8077 t CO2/t, and the direct CO2 emission factor of
Estimating of cement CO2 emissions should include the emis- average cement was just 0.4788 t, which reduced 0.308 t CO2 since
sions during the whole cement life cycle, from the quarry of raw 1995 (0.787 t) and 0.113 t since 2005 (0.592 t) [37], due to the high
materials to the point where the concrete has been demolished. mineral admixture content and the improvement of equipment.
Table 4 shows the material flow, energy intensity, and CO2 The clinker intensity reduced from 72.9% in 2005 to 62.7% in 2011,
emissions during each of these stages based on 1 t of Portland the reduction on the share of clinker (the highest CO2 emission
cement clinker, including a similar calculation for average cement intensity component) resulted notable CO2 emission reduction.
for 1 t of clinker (1.594 t cement). The Portland cement in this The total manufacture emission factor was just 0.545 t CO2/t and
model is a cement composed of 95% of clinker and 5% of gypsum, reduced 0.138 t CO2/t cement since 2009 [37], resulted from the
1010 W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 1004–1012

Table 5
The CO2 emission factors of cement products at 2011.

CO2 emission Clinker Portland Avarage TD CO2

cement cement concrete life CS CO2 (-
(5.61%) 29.64%)
RMCO2 0.5000 0.4762 0.3137 RMCO2
FDCO2 0.2628 0.2503 0.1651 (53.8%)
EDCO2 0.0374 0.06445 0.0526
TDCO2 (cement produce) 0.0141 0.0167 0.0136 LC CO2
LCCO2 0.0046 0.005 (0.86%)
TD CO2 (concrete life cycle) 0.038 0.0327
CSCO2  0.275  0.2619  0.1725 ED
Manufacture direct CO2 emission 0.7628 0.7265 0.4788 CO2(9.03%)
Manufacture process CO2 0.8143 0.8077 0.5450 TD CO2
emission cement
Manufacture neat emission 0.4878 0.4646 0.3063
FD CO2
produce (28.3%)
Cement life cycle CO2 0.5884 0.4102
(2.33%)
Fig. 6. The shares of various CO2 emission of China’s average cement at 2011.

Table 6
The carbon emission of China’s cement industry at 2011.

CO2 emission Manufacture Manufacture Manufacture Cement

direct CO2 process CO2 neat CO2 life cycle
emission emission emission CO2
( Gt) ( Gt) ( Gt) emission
( Gt)

RMCO2 0.6541 0.6541 0.6541 0.6541

FDCO2 0.3442 0.3442 0.3442 0.3442
EDCO2 0.1097 0.1097
TDCO2 (cement 0.0284 0.0284
produce)
LCCO2 0.0104
TDCO2 (concrete life) 0.0682
CSCO2  0.3597  0.3597

Total CO2 emission 0.9983 1.1364 0.6386 0.8553

reduction of capacity share of shaft kiln and wet kiln, and the
contribution of the recovery of waste heat. The neat CO2 emission
was just 0.3063 t CO2/t which is very similar to the RMCO2 emission
of the cement, and the life cycle carbon emission factor of average
cement was just 0.4102 t CO2/t.

4.3. Carbon emission of China’s cement industry

The carbon emission of China’s cement industry is shown in

Table 6, the totally direct emission was 0.9983 Gt, which counts
around 11.1% of the carbon emission of the whole country (8.96 Gt
by IEA) in 2011 [39], and was lower than the 15% estimated by IEA
[3]. Most institutes estimated the carbon emission of China basing
on the energy consumption data of 2005 from China cement
almanac of 2007 [40], the development of technology and equip-
ment of China’s cement industry is too fast to be calculated and
simulated [37]. The life cycle CO2 emission of cement was 0.853 Gt
in 2011, the manufacture carbon emission including electricity
derived CO2 and transportation derived CO2 during cement man-
ufacture was 1.136 Gt, it was nearly the same as the data in 2009,
the later was 1.1364 Gt of CO2 estimated by Jing Ke [38]. During
2009–2011, although the cement production increased by 26.5% in
China, the CO2 emission nearly remained unchanged, mainly due
to the policies to weed outdate cement capacity and the commis-
sion of large scale new dry process kiln, large scale roll miller and
application of waste heat recovery.
Fig. 6 provide the share of six sources of carbon emission of
cement industry of China at 2011, first, the RMCO2 is as higher as
Fig. 7. The schematic diagram of approach for low carbon emission cement industry.
53.8% of the carbon emission, the second is FDCO2 count 28.3%, the
EDCO2 and the TDCO2 is very similar, and during 100 years after the
concrete is cast, 29.64% of the carbon emission can be sink by
carbonization.
4.4. The carbon reduction approach of China’s cement industry
Reducing the carbon emissions of cement industry involves a
holistic approach, it can be summarized in six key steps (shown in
Fig. 7): (1) Less construction society: in USA, Japan and UK, the per
capita cement production is just around 300 kg (Table 1), while
countries with high urbanization rate have much higher cement
production capita rate. The urbanization rate in China will continue
at a rapid rate in this decade, but it is anticipated that by 2020, the
 W. Shen et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 50 (2015) 1004–1012
industrialization and urbanization of China will have reached its peak
and the rate of cement production will begin to decrease. Prolonging
the service life of concrete structures is part of China’s strategy to
reduce carbon emissions from cement industry. Currently, the average
service life of a building in China is around 30 years, and there is big
room to reduce the cement demand by designing and scheming long
life construction; (2) Less concrete structure: it is an effective approach
to reduce the section of structure by innovative design and the use of
high-strength and high-performance concrete in more structures [41];
(3) Less cement concrete: developing new processes to construction
concrete with higher aggregate volume fraction and less cement paste
but equal even better performance [42,43], with mineral admixtures
such as fly ash, blast furnace slag, rice husk ash and other solid waste
to replace the cement in concrete [41], also designing concrete with
optimal mix design system may work [44]. (4) Less clinker cement,
reducing the fraction of clinker in cement by utilization supplemen-
tary cementious mineral admixture is also valid. In 2011, the percen-
tage of clinker in cement has been reduced to 62.8%, the cement with
less clinker has lower cost so the cement industries have high initiative
to use the solid waste or natural mineral admixture to produce blend
cement. This strategy is another mean to comprehensively utilize the
solid waste [12,45],. The high performance concrete will have more
opportunity to mineral admixture utilization and reduce the CO2
emission of concrete life cycle; (5) Less carbon emission cement
clinker, clinker gives a prevail carbon emission of the Portland
cements, the RMCO2 is the main fraction, the most effective approach
to cut carbon emissions is to substitute calcium carbonate raw
materials with other calcium raw materials e.g. carbide slag, steel slag,
waste gypsum, substituting 20% limestone in the place of carbonate
material results in the reduction of more than 100 kg CO2/t of clinker
according to Eq. (1); the fuel derived carbon emission is significantly
cut down by the policies of National Development and Reform
Commission to close down outdated production facilities e.g. shaft
kiln, wet kiln and ordinary dry kiln and the new dry kiln capacity less
than 2500 t clinker/d [12], using renewable or biomass fuels in
cements kiln are a possible approach in reducing carbon emissions
from the production of clinker [3]. The electricity derived carbon
emission is significantly cut by using large-scale mill, vertical mill or
horizontal mill replace of small ball mill, the recovery of waste heat
from kiln also contributes to the cut down of electricity, and the
emission factor of electricity of China is going down by the use of
renewable energy. The improvement of transport infrastructure con-
tributes to the reduction of transportation derived CO2. (6) Utilization
of alternative cementitious materials, the alkali activated cement has
very low carbon emission and it is regarded as an alternative and low
carbon cementitious material substituting for Portland cement at the
future [46–48]. Policy to put forward carbon exchange in cement
industry can induce market competition and promote the low carbon
its progress.
On the other hand, China’s cement industry provides an
opportunity to utilize various solid waste materials as raw mate-
rial, fuel and mineral admixture for cement or concrete. As the
world factory, China produced 3.277 Gt industrial solid waste in
2013 [49], China cement industry is turning into an environmental
friendly industry to utilization and treat various solid wastes
including municipal sludge, municipal solid waste [50], industrial
solid waste, and hazardous waste materials. The waste air from
cement kilns has a very high concentration of CO2, which can be
captured and stored [51], so solid wastes e.g. waste tyre, waste
plastic can be used to manufacture cement as recycling energy, the
use of renewable energy in cement industry also is an effective
approach to reduce the carbon emission [3,27]. The carbon
emission of cement industry plays an important role on the society
total carbon emission [3,27,47], exploring new holistic approach to
reduce the carbon emission of cement industry is a very important
issue to slash the global anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
1011
5. Conclusions
Whereas the high production and lack of statistic data on
carbon emission of China’s cement industry, the life cycle assess-
ment is employed to assess its CO2 footprint, the carbon emission
reduction approach is discussed and following conclusions have
been reached:
1) China produces 60% of the whole global cement, its 1.55 t per
capita cement production is three times of world average. 286 g
cement is used while each U.S. Dollar of GDP is created, which
is 5.7 times of world average, the large cement production
ensured the rapid urbanization of China.
2) The direct CO2 emission factor from cement is 0.4788 t. CO2
emissions were reduced by 0.308 t compared to 1995 and
0.113 t compared to 2005. The total emissions is calculated to
0.545 t CO2/t cement, a reduction of 0.138 t CO2/t cement
compared to 2009.
3) At 2011, the totally direct emission of cement manufacture is
0.9983 Gt, which is around 11.1% of nation’s emission and it is
much lower than pre-existing simulation. From 2009 to 2011
cement production increased by 26.5%, but the CO2 emission
nearly remained unchanged.
4) The RMCO2 counts 53.8%, FDCO2 counts 28.3% of the carbon
emission of cement industry at 2011, the share of EDCO2 and the
total TDCO2 is 7.94% and 0.86%, 29.64% of the carbon emission
can be sink during 100 years after cast by carbonization.
5) During the last five years, effective public policies, strong market
demands and competition factors have encouraged the cement
industry toward innovation and modernization, China has
reduced its CO2 emissions from cement industry by employing
new technology and large-scale equipment.
6) A holistic approach is proposed to reduce the carbon emission of
cement industry including public foundation, technology and
equipment level and innovation cementitious materials, cement
industry is turning into an environment friendly industry by
used solid waste and renewable energy.
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