Eco innovation strategies for promoting cleaner cement manufacturing

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in cement plants are generated by the decarbonation of raw materials and fuel combustion in the cement kiln during the cement clinker production process and account for 8% of global emissions. This paper presents a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) by considering various mitigation measures, such as co-processing of fuels, kiln improvements and carbon capture and storage (CCS) yields, that can have substantial benefits. The benefits include cleaner cement production with minimum production costs, while satisfying the quality standard, carbon reduction target, and fuels substitution rate. The developed model is applied to a case study in order to demonstrate the applicability of the model. For the base case, the optimal cost for clinker production is USD 90.21/t clinker while CO2 emissions generated from both calcination of raw materials and fuels combustion is 531.68 kg CO2/t clinker and 325.00 kg CO2/t clinker. It was found that the highest possible CO2 emissions reduction that can be achieved by a combination of co-processing, kiln improvements and CCS technology is 79%, with an increment cost of USD 136.46/t clinker.