Low carbon cement manufacturing in India by co-processing of alternative fuel and raw materials

ABSTRACT

Cement production consumes 9.10% of the total industrial energy, thus making it the third largest consumer of energy. Each ton of cement generates approximately 0.7–0.93 ton of CO₂ depending on the kiln technology used. The top 10 cement producing countries along with the European Union emits 1445 million tonnes of CO₂ each year. Therefore, increased focus is given on different strategies of carbon mitigation. Co-processing is seen as one of the most prominent methodologies for making the cement manufacturing a low carbon process. The study shows low carbon manufacturing potential of cement plant in India based on the available literature and two case studies, considering economical and environmental sustainability. Co-processing leads to low carbon cement manufacturing process as traditional fuel and raw materials are saved and simultaneously waste going to the landfill gets reduced, thus making co-processing a holistic methodology for resource recovery.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-processing
• low carbon
• cement plant
• carbon foot print
• India
• AFRs

Acknowledgments

Authors acknowledge the support provided by the research project “Sustainability of Co-processing of wastes in cement kiln and improvement in technology” by International Society of Waste Management, Air and Water” (ISWMAW) and Jadavpur University.