A relative life cycle assessment (LCA) is conducted for mortar mixes formulated by including flue gas desulfurization (FGD) gypsum, fly ash and ordinary Portland cement (OPC) as binding agents using cradle-to-gate approach by scaling up laboratory size life cycle inventory. Construction is a crucial sector for the sustainable development of Asian countries, as it is increasingly required to transition towards the use of novel ecological mortars. The construction industry is characterised by a significant use of energy and the manufacturing of cement is a major contributor to global environmental pollution. By-products generated by coal fired power plants show potential as a sustainable substitute for cement in mortar. LCA is utilised to measure the potential environmental effects on various indicators including acidification, climate change-global warming potential, ecotoxicity (freshwater, marine, terrestrial), energy resources: non-renewable-abiotic depletion potential: fossil fuels, eutrophication, human toxicity, material resources: metals/minerals-abiotic depletion potential: elements (ultimate reserves), ozone layer depletion and photochemical oxidation of developed mortars. FGD gypsum-Fly ash-Cement (FFC) mortar performs better than Cement mortar (C) in all evaluated environmental impacts. Relative LCA study of sustainable FFC and C mortar mix production was performed using the ecoinvent - CML v4.8 2016 method. Global warming potential of the developed FFC mortar is found to be −3.75972e-1Kg CO2-Eq. Primary areas of concern are the transportation infrastructure and the usage of fossil fuels in the production of FGD gypsum, fly ash and cement. Substituting natural gas for non-renewable mineral coke will result in a decrease in the overall environmental impacts. Based on the conducted LCA, it has been determined that all the environmental indicators of FFC mortar are considerably lower than those of cement mortar with similar strength. Utilising sustainable FFC mortar will substantially decrease the extraction of non-renewable resources, resulting in a decrease in environmental impacts.
扫码关注我们
求助内容:
应助结果提醒方式:
