Calcination of carbonate rocks during the manufacture of cement produced 5% of global CO 2 emissions from all industrial process and fossil-fuel combustion in 2013. Considerable attention has been paid to quantifying these industrial process emissions from cement production, but the natural reversal of the process - carbonation - has received little attention in carbon cycle studies. Here, we use new and existing data on cement materials during cement service life, demolition, and secondary use of concrete waste to estimate regional and global CO 2 uptake between 1930 and 2013 using an analytical model describing carbonation chemistry. We find that carbonation of cement materials over their life cycle represents a large and growing net sink of CO 2, increasing from 0.10 GtC yr â '1 in 1998 to 0.25 GtC yr â '1 in 2013. In total, we estimate that a cumulative amount of 4.5 GtC has been sequestered in carbonating cement materials from 1930 to 2013, offsetting 43% of the CO 2 emissions from production of cement over the same period, not including emissions associated with fossil use during cement production. We conclude that carbonation of cement products represents a substantial carbon sink that is not currently considered in emissions inventories.
Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China; Key Laboratory of Pollution Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China; College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang, China; University of California, Irvine, Department of Earth System Science, Irvine, California, United States; Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, CE Orme des 14 Merisiers, Gif sur Yvette Cedex, France; Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, 19 Silver Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom; School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom; Danish Technological Institute, Gregersensvej, Taastrup, Denmark; College of Economy and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Low-carbon Conversion Science and Engineering, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; Department of Plant Architectural Engineering, Kyonggi University, Gwanggyosan-ro 154-42, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, Kyonggi-do, South Korea; Swedish Cement and Concrete Research Institute, CBI Betonginstitutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Chemistry, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom; Eduardo Torroja Institute CSIC, Serrano Galvache 4, Madrid, Spain; Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang, China; Resnick Sustainability Institute, California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California, United States; John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Recommended Citation:
Xi F.,Davis S.J.,Ciais P.,et al. Substantial global carbon uptake by cement carbonation[J]. Nature Geoscience,2016-01-01,9(12)