Cement industry
Cement production involves the high-temperature calcination of raw materials (mainly limestone) in a rotary kiln to produce clinker, which is then ground with additives to form cement.
This analysis compares 32 cement production configurations based on energy demand and CO₂ emissions. The configurations differ in terms of:
- Energy vector used for heat supply – Coal, natural gas (NG), biomethane (BG), solid biomass (BM), refuse-derived fuel (RDF), hydrogen (H2), full or partial electrification (Plasma or Hybrid, respectively)
- Combustion mode – Conventional air-fired or oxy-fired kilns
- Carbon capture technology – Post-combustion chemical absorption (MEA), MEA systems with integrated heat pumping (MEA(HP)), oxy-combustion with cryogenic CO₂ purification (Oxy), calcium looping (CaL)
Want to explore the emissions in more detail?
Click below to access the detailed assessment to examine how the different technologies and energy vectors contribute to overall CO₂ emissions.
Energy demand and CO₂ emissions
The graph below presents total CO₂ emissions (t CO₂/t clinker) and specific energy demand (GJ/t clinker) for each configuration.
The specific energy demand includes:
- Fuel Demand Process – Thermal energy for calcination
- P-Process – Electrical demand for kiln operation
- Fuel Demand boiler – Thermal energy for reboiler operation (required for MEA solvent regeneration)
- Fuel Demand (CC-CaL) – Thermal energy for calcium looping
- P-MEA – Power required by absorption-based CO₂ capture
- P-Heat Pumps – Electrical demand for heat pump operation
- P-CPU – Electrical demand for CPU operation
- P-ASU – Electricity for oxygen production (air-separation unit)
- Heat Recovered – Useful thermal energy recovered through heat integration to generate low-pressure steam for MEA solvent regeneration
- Power Recovered– Electricity generated via waste heat recovery using a CO₂ power cycle
Explore the configurations
Use the drop-down menu to select the configurations to display. Hover over the graph to explore the different categories and view additional details.