Áreas prioritárias para incrementar a qualidade de dados de ICVs do cimento produzido no Brasil

Abstract

Cement is one of the most used materials in the world. However, it is hardly replaced, making its production being directly related with the country wealth and growth. However, its production is related to the emission of large quantities of gases, especially for carbon dioxide, making the cement industry one of the largest emitter of this gas in the world. Brazil is reference in the production of this commodity, but it can still improve more and remain as a world reference in CO2 emissions in the cement industry. This study has the objective of identify which areas of the Brazilian cement production are more significant to be updated to improve the quality and accuracy of the LCIs of the Brazilian cement. As a way of evaluating the activities that provide the necessary inputs for the production of cement, a LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) was made. It was taking into account the extraction of the raw materials until the finished product in the factory, the analysis comprising these steps is known as from the cradleto-gate. For this study, the Umberto program, the Ecoinvent 3.3 data platform and several data on Portland cement production in Brazil were used. The main sources were the National Union of Cement Industry (SNIC), ABCP (Brazilian Association of Portland Cement) and a study made by Cherubini et al. In this study was taken into account the quantities of each type of cement manufactured in the country to make the average of the national production. The categories of climate change, fossil depletion, and ozone depletion, were evaluated together with the absence of proper process in data platform, in order to discovery which processes were most significant in the cement production. Consequently, which process were most appropriate to be updated according to the Brazilian reality. In conclusion, the production and distribution processes of petroleum coke, hard coal, diesel, limestone, and clay are the ones that most need improvements and adaptations. Doing those changes according to the Brazilian processes will make possible the construction of a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) of the Brazilian cement production that precisely represents this process in reality.