Life Cycle Assessment of Mortars with Incorporation of Industrial Wastes

Abstract

The production of waste is increasing yearly and, without a viable recycle or reutilization solution, waste is sent to landfills, where it can take thousand to years to degrade. Simultaneously, for the production of new materials, some industries continue to ignore the potential of wastes and keep on using natural resources for production. The incorporation of waste materials in mortars is a possible solution to avoid landfilling, through their recycling or reutilization. However, no evaluation of their “sustainability” in terms of environmental performance is available in the literature. In this sense, in this research a life cycle assessment was performed on mortars, namely renders, with incorporation of industrials wastes replacing sand and/or cement. For that purpose, eight environmental impact categories (abiotic depletion potential, global warming potential, ozone depletion potential, photochemical ozone creation potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, use of non-renewable primary energy resources, and use of renewable primary energy resources) within a “cradle to gate” boundary were analyzed for 19 mortars with incorporation of several industrial wastes: sanitary ware, glass fiber reinforced polymer, forest biomass ashes, and textile fibers. Sixteen out of the 19 mortars under analysis presented, in all environmental impact categories, an equal or better environment performance than a common mortar (used as a reference). The benefits in some environmental impacts were over 20%.

Life Cycle Assessment of Mortars Produced Partially Replacing Cement by Treated Mining Residues

“…The data used to shape the LCA of the raw materials involved was collected from peerreviewed scientific research works [7,26,[31][32][33][34]. To determine the impact of the mortars with mining residues in the environmental categories studied, the composition of the mortars produced in previous works was considered (Table 1).…”

“…The LCA provides an estimation of cumulative impacts that can also be used to quantify the embodied energy of products, considering environmental categories defined in EN 15804+A2 [25]. The inventory is the core of the LCA and, for this reason, reliable data from environmental product declarations (EPD), peer-reviewed scientific research works, in-site quantifications, and international databases should be preferentially used [26].…”

Eco-Cost Analysis of Split Air-Conditioner Using Activity-Based Costing Method

“…Up to date, LCA method has been used in evaluation of various industrial products and engineering projects such as natural resource extraction [23]. Basically, LCA methods can be divided into PLCA, EIOLCA and hybrid life cycle assessment (HLCA) [24]. PLCA is the most traditional and classic LCA method.…”

Optimising the Workability and Strength of Concrete Modified with Anacardium Occidentale Nutshell Ash

“…The utilisation of SCMs in concrete production reduces the constituents' costs, energy consumption, and environmental impacts, contributing to energy and environmental preservation and sustainable products and development [14]. Oyebisi et al [15] investigated the reactivity indexes and durability properties of geopolymer concrete (GPC), incorporating both ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and corn cob ash (CCA) as SCMs.…”