Reducing CO2 emissions in cement manufacturing through alternative fuel sources

This study evaluates the production and consumption data of a cement plant that currently produces cement and clinker and calculates CO2 emissions. The total emissions from fuel and waste between 2017 and 2021 are calculated as 0.3786 Mt CO2e/year, 0.4359 Mt CO2e/year, 0.3168 Mt CO2e/year, 0.3924 Mt CO2e/year, and 0.3340 Mt CO2e/year, respectively. Considering that the emission amount due to fuel consumption is 392 366 tons CO2e/year in 2020 and the emission due to electricity use is 70 307 tons CO2e/year for the same year, the significance of emissions from electricity use becomes evident. The factory’s emissions from electricity usage decreased from 79 220 tons CO2e/year in 2017 to 61 695 tons CO2e/year in 2019 due to the increased use of alternative fuels and less lignite. Since the increasing customer demand of the factory is expected to lead an increase in petroleum coke consumption over the years, it has been determined that there has been a 25 % decrease in petroleum coke consumption compared to the previous year, with the factory starting to use End-of-Life Tires as an alternative fuel in 2019. This preference caused the total emission value for 2019 to decrease by approximately 27 % compared to the emission value of the previous year. Likewise, with the usage of 26 355 tons of Refused-Derived Fuel in 2021, the amount of petroleum coke used in the same year decreased by 26 % compared to the previous year, and decreased to 78 225 tons. The question of what the emission amounts would be if a certain amount of lignite was used to obtain the combustion efficiency obtained with the fuel consumed from RDF was also examined. It has been calculated that choosing petroleum coke instead of RDF in 2017 will cause an increase in emissions by approximately 38 %, and choosing lignite by approximately 43 %.