BULETINUL INSTITUTULUI POLITEHNIC DIN IAŞI

Publicat de
Universitatea Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi” din Iaşi
Tomul LV (LIX), Fasc. 4, 2009
Secţia
CONSTRUCŢII. ĂRHITECTURĂ

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF CONCRETE

BY

DAN BABOR, DIANA PLIAN and LOREDANA JUDELE

Abstract. The cement and concrete industries are huge. What does this mean in
terms of the environment? Concrete and other cementitious materials have both
environmental advantages and disadvantages.
This paper takes a look at how these materials are made, then reviews a number of
environmental considerations relating to their production and use.
Key words: raw materials; concrete; portland cement.

1. Introduction

Concrete is a material used in building construction, consisting of a

hard, chemically inert particular substance, known as an aggregate (usually
made from different types of sand and gravel), that is bonded together by
cement and water.
The Assyrians and Babylonians used clay as the bonding substance or
cement. The Egyptians used lime and gypsum cement. In 1756, British
engineer, John Smeaton, made the first modern concrete (hydraulic cement) by
adding pebbles as a coarse aggregate and mixing powered brick into the cement.
In 1824, English inventor, Joseph Aspdin, invented Portland Cement, which has
remained the dominant cement used in concrete production. Joseph Aspdin
created the first true artificial cement by burning ground limestone and clay
together. The burning process changed the chemical properties of the materials
and Joseph Aspdin created a stronger cement than that which uses plain crushed
limestone would produce.
28 Dan Babor, Diana Plian and Loredana Judele

Cement production requires a source of calcium (usually limestone)

and a source of silicon (such as clay or sand). Small amounts of bauxite and
iron ore are added to provide specific properties. These raw materials are finely
ground and mixed, then fell into a rotary cement kiln, which is the largest piece
of moving industrial equipment in the world. The kiln is a long, sloping cylinder
with zones that get progressively hotter up to about 1,480°C. The kiln rotates
slowly to mix the contents moving through it (Fig. 1). In the kiln, the raw
materials undergo complex chemical and physical changes required to make
them able to react together through hydration. The most common type of
cement kiln today is a dry process kiln, in which the ingredients are mixed dry.
Many older kilns use the wet process.

Fig. 1 – Cement kiln.

The first important reaction to occur is the calcining of limestone

(calcium carbonate) into lime (calcium oxide) and carbon dioxide, which occurs
in the lower-temperature portions of the kiln-up to about 900°C. The second
reaction is the bonding of calcium oxide and silicates to form dicalcium and
tricalcium silicates. Small amounts of tricalcium aluminate and tetracalcium
aluminoferrite are also formed. The relative proportions of these four principal
compounds determine the key properties of the resultant Portland cement and
the type classification (Type I, Type II, etc.). These reactions occur at very high
temperatures with the ingredients in molten form. As the new compounds cool,
they solidify into solid pellet form called clinker. The clinker is then grounded
to a fine powder, a small amount of gypsum is added, and the finished cement is
bagged or shipped bulk to ready mix concrete plants.
 Bul. Inst. Polit. Iaşi, t. LV (LIX), f. 4, 2009 29

Concrete is produced by mixing cement with fine aggregate (sand),

coarse aggregate (gravel or crushed stone), water, and small amounts of various
chemicals called admixtures that control such properties as setting time and
plasticity. The process of hardening or setting is actually a chemical reaction
called hydration. When water is added to the cement, it forms a slurry or gel
that coats the surfaces of the aggregate and fills the voids to form the solid
concrete. The properties of concrete are determined by the type of cement used,
the additives, and the overall proportions of cement, aggregate, and water.

2. Raw Material Use

The raw materials used in cement production are widely available in
great quantities. Limestone, marl, and chalk are the most common sources of
calcium in cement (converted into lime through calcination). Common sources
of silicon include clay, sand, and shale. Certain waste products, such as fly, can
also be used as a silicon source. The iron and aluminum can be provided as iron
ore and bauxite, but recycled metals can also be used. Finally, about 5% of
cement by weight is gypsum, a common calcium- and sulfur-based mineral. It
takes 1,455…1,597 kg of raw materials to produce one ton of finished cement,
according to the Environmental Research Group at the University of British
Columbia (UBC).
The water, sand and gravel or
Table 1 crushed stone used in concrete
Typical Concrete Mix production in addition to cement are
Percent by also abundant (typical proportion of a
Component
weight, [%] concrete mix are shown in Table 1).
Portland cement 12 With all of these raw materials,
Sand 34
the distance and quality of the sources
Crushed stone 48
have a big impact on transportation
Water 6
energy use, water use for washing, and
dust generation. Some aggregates that have been used in concrete production
have turned out to be sources of radon gas. The worse problems were when
uranium mine tailings were used as concrete aggregate, but some natural stone
also emits radon.
Fly ash is a fine, glass-like powder recovered from gases created by
coal-fired electric power generation. Power plants produce millions of tons of
fly ash annually, which is usually dumped in landfills. Fly ash is an inexpensive
replacement for Portland cement used in concrete, while it actually improves
strength, segregation, and ease of pumping of the concrete. Fly ash is also used
as an ingredient in brick, block, paving, and structural fills.
Fly ash concrete was first used in the USA in 1929 for the Hoover Dam,
where engineers found that it allowed for less total cement. It is now used
across the country. Consisting mostly of silica, alumina and iron, fly ash is a
pozzolan – a substance containing aluminous and silicious material that forms
30 Dan Babor, Diana Plian and Loredana Judele

cement in the presence of water. When mixed with lime and water it forms a
compound similar to Portland cement. The spherical shape (Fig. 2) of the
particles reduces internal friction thereby increasing the concrete’s consistency
and mobility, permitting longer pumping distances. Improved workability
means less water is needed, resulting in less segregation of the mixture.
Although fly ash cement itself is less dense than Portland cement, the produced
concrete is denser and results in a smoother surface with sharper detail.

Fig. 2 – A spherical shape of fly ash particles.

The use of fly ash from coal-fired power plants is beneficial in two
ways: it can help with our solid waste problems, and it reduces overall energy
use. While fly ash is sometimes used as a source of silica in cement production,
a more common use is in concrete mixture as a substitute for some of the
cement. Fly ash, or pozzolan, can readily be substituted for 15…35% of the
cement in concrete mixes, and for some applications fly ash content can be up
to 70%. Fly ash today accounts for about 9% of the cement mix in concrete. Fly
ash reacts with any free lime left after the hydration to form calcium silicate
hydrate, which is similar to the tricalcium and dicalcium silicates formed in
cement curing. Through this process, fly ash increases concrete strength,
improves sulfate resistance, decreases permeability, reduces the water ratio
required, and improves the pumpability and workability of the concrete. Fly ash
is widely used in Europe as a major ingredient in autoclaved cellular concrete
(ACC); in the United States, North American Cellular Concrete is developing
this technology.
Other industrial waste products, including blast furnace slag, cinders,
and mill scale are sometimes substituted for some of the aggregate in concrete
mixes. Even recycled concrete can be crushed into aggregate that can be reused
in the concrete mix, though the irregular surface of aggregate so produced is
less effective that sand or crushed stone because it takes more cement slurry to
fill all the nooks and crannies. In fact, using crushed concrete as an aggregate
 Bul. Inst. Polit. Iaşi, t. LV (LIX), f. 4, 2009 31

might be counterproductive by requiring extra cement–by far the most energy–

intensive component of concrete.

3. Energy

Energy consumption is the biggest environmental concern with cement

and concrete production. Cement production is one of the most energy intensive
of all industrial manufacturing process. Including direct fuel use for mining and
transporting raw materials, cement production takes about 1,758 kWh for every
ton of cement. The industry’s heavy reliance on coal leads to especially high
emission levels of CO2, nitrous oxide and sulphur, among other pollutants. A
sizeable portion of the electricity used is also generated from coal.
The vast majority of the energy consumed in cement production is used
for operating the rotary cement kilns. Dry-process kilns are more energy
efficient than older wet-process kilns, because energy is not required for driving
off moisture. In a modern dry-process kiln, a pre-heater is often used to heat the
ingredients using waste heat from the exhaust gases of the kiln burners. A dry-
process kiln so adapted can use up to 50% less energy than a wet-process kiln.
Some other dry-process kilns use a separate combustion vessel in which the
calcining process begins before the ingredients move into the rotary kiln – a
technique that can have even higher overall efficiency than a kiln with pre-
heater.
While cement manufacturing is extremely energy intensive, the very
high temperatures used in a cement kiln have at least one advantage: the
potential for burning hazardous waste as a fuel. Waste fuels that can be used in
cement kilns include used motor oil, spent solvents, printing inks, paint
residues, cleaning fluids, and scrap tires. These can be burned relatively safely
because the extremely high temperatures result in very complete combustion
with very low pollution emissions. For some chemicals thermal destruction in a
cement kiln is the safest method of disposal.
A single cement kiln can burn more than a million tires a year,
according to the Portland Cement Association. These tires have a higher fuel
content than coal, and iron from the steel belts can be used as an ingredient in
the cement manufacturing.
Energy use for concrete production looks considerably better than it
does for cement, because the other components of concrete (sand, crushed
stone, and water) are much less energy intensive.

4. CO2 Emissions

There are two very different sources of carbon dioxide emissions during
cement production.
Combustion of fossil fuels to operate the rotary kiln is the largest
source: approximately 3/4 t of CO2 per ton of cement. The chemical process of
32 Dan Babor, Diana Plian and Loredana Judele

calcining limestone into lime in the cement kiln also produces CO2. Combining
these two sources, for every ton of cement produced, 1.25 t of CO2 is released
into the atmosphere. Worldwide, cement production now accounts for more
than 1.6 × 109 t of CO2 emissions from all human activities.

Fig. 3 – Emissions of CO2 per capita 1990 (selected countries).

The Fig. 3 shows emissions of CO2 per capita in 1990. CO2 can be
emitted as byproduct from the use of fossil fuel, by combustion, land-use
conversion and cement production.
The most significant way to reduce CO2 emissions is improving the
energy efficiency of the cement kiln operation. Dramatic reductions in energy
use have been realized in recent decades, switching to lower CO2 fuels such as
natural gas and agricultural waste. Another strategy, which addresses the CO2
emissions from calcining limestone, is to use waste lime from other industries in
the kiln. Substitution of fly ash for some of the cement in concrete can have a
very large effect.

5. Other Air Emissions

Besides CO2 both cement and concrete production generate

considerable quantities of air-pollutant emissions. Dust is the most visible of
these pollutants. It’s estimates total particulate (dust) emissions of 360 pounds
per ton of cement produced, the majority of which results from the cement
 Bul. Inst. Polit. Iaşi, t. LV (LIX), f. 4, 2009 33

production handling raw materials, grinding cement clinker, and packaging or

loading finished cement, which is grounded to a very fine powder.
The best way to deal with the dust generated in cement manufacturing
would be to collect it and put it back into the process. This is done to some
extent, using mechanical collectors, electric precipitators, and fabric filters (bag
houses).
Recycling the dust is difficult; firstly it has to be treated to reduce its
alkalinity. Some cement kiln dust is used for agricultural soil treatments and the
rest (of that collected) is often land filled on site.
In addition to dust produced in cement manufacturing, dust is also
generated in concrete production and transport. Common sources are sand and
aggregate mining, material transfer, storage (wind erosion from piles), mixer
loading, and concrete delivery (dust from unpaved roads).
Dust emissions can be controlled through water sprays, enclosures,
hoods, curtains, and covered chutes.
Other air pollution emissions from cement and concrete production
result from fossil fuel burning for process and transportation uses. Air pollutants
commonly emitted from cement manufacturing plants include sulfur dioxide
(SO2) and nitrous oxides (NOx).
SO2 emissions (and to a lesser extent SO3, sulfuric acid, and hydrogen
sulfide) result from sulfur content of both the raw materials and the fuel.
Strategies to reduce sulfur emissions include use of low-sulfur raw materials,
burning low-sulfur coal of other fuels, and collecting the sulfur emissions. Lime
in the cement kiln acts as a scrubber and absorbs some sulfur.
Nitrous oxide emissions are influenced by fuel type and combustion
conditions (including flame temperature, burner type, and material/exhaust gas
retention in the burning zone of kiln). Strategies to reduce nitrogen emissions
include altering the burner design, modifying kiln and pre-calciner operation,
using alternate fuels, and adding ammonia or urea to the process.

6. Water Pollution

Another environmental issue with cement and concrete production is

water pollution.
At the batch plant, wash water from equipment cleaning is often
discharged into setting ponds where the solids can settled out.
Some returned concrete also gets put into settling ponds to wash off and
recover the aggregate.

7. Solid Waste

While the cement and concrete industries can help to reduce some of
our solid waste problems (burning hazardous waste as cement kiln fuel and
34 Dan Babor, Diana Plian and Loredana Judele

using fly ash in concrete mixtures), one cannot overlook the fact that concrete is
the most visible component of construction and demolition waste.
Of the concrete that is recycled, most is used as a highway substrate or
as a clean fill around buildings.
Concrete waste is also created in new constructions.
When it is possible to use pre-cast concrete components instead of
poured concrete, doing so many offer advantages in terms of waste generation.
Material quantities can be estimated more precisely and excess material
can be utilized. By carefully controlling conditions during manufacture of pre-
cast concrete products, higher strengths can be achieved using less material.

8. Health Concerns

Working with wet concrete requires a number of precautions, primarily

to protect the skin from the high alkalinity. Rubber gloves and boots are
typically, all that are required to provide protection.
Concrete is generally very safe; it has been one of the most inert of our
building materials. As concrete production has become higher-tech, however,
that is changing.
A number of chemicals are now commonly added to concrete to control
setting time, plasticity, pumpability, water content, freeze–thaw resistance,
strength, and colour.
Workability agents or superplasticizers can include such chemicals as
sulfonated melamine–formaldehyde and sulphonated napthalene formaldehyde
condensates.
Air-entraining admixtures function by incorporating air into concrete to
provide resistance to damage from freeze–thaw cycles and to improve
workability. These materials can include various types of inorganic salts (salts
of wood resins and salts of sulphonated lignin). Fungicides, germicides, and
insecticides are also added to some concretes. Because of these chemical
admixtures, today concrete could conceivably off gas small quantities of
formaldehydes and other chemicals into the indoor air.
Concrete floors and walls can cause moisture problems and lead to
mold and mildew growth, which cause significant health, which cause
significant health problems in certain individuals. There are two common
sources of moisture: moisture wicking through concrete from the surrounding
soil and moisture from the house that may condense on the cold surface of
concrete. To eliminate the former, provide good drainage around a foundation,
damp proof or waterproof the outside of the foundation walls before backfilling,
provide a layer of crushed stone beneath the slab, and install a polyethylene
moisture barrier under the slab (protected from the concrete with a layer of sand
if possible). To reduce the likehood of condensation of concrete surfaces, they
should be insulated.
 Bul. Inst. Polit. Iaşi, t. LV (LIX), f. 4, 2009 35

9. Conclusions

Cement and concrete are vital components in building construction

today. Concrete has many environmental advantages, including durability,
longevity, heat storage capability, and chemical inertia. In many situations
concrete is superior to other materials such as wood and steel. But cement
production is very energy intensive – cement is among the most energy-
intensive materials used in the construction industry and major contributor to
CO2 in the atmosphere.
To minimize environmental impact, we should try to reduce the
quantity of concrete used in buildings, use alternative types of concrete (with fly
ash), and use that concrete wisely.
Received, October 20, 2009 “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iaşi,
Department of Concrete Structures, Building
Materials, Technology and Management
e-mail: danbabor@ce.tuiasi.ro
dianaplian@ce.tuiasi.ro
ljudele@ce.tuiasi.ro

REFERENCES
1. Hoffman G.K., Uses of Fly Ash from New Mexico Coals. New Mexico Geology, 22,
2, 25-36 (2000).
2. Hoffman G.K., Fly Ash Utilization in the Western United States. 36th Forum on the
Geology of Industrial Minerals and 11th Extractive Industry Geology
Conference, Bath, England, 2000.
3. Hoffman G.K., Fly Ash Utilization in the Western United States. In Scott P.W. and
Bristow C.M., (Eds.), Industrial Minerals and Extractive Industry Geology.
The Geological Society, London, 2002, 331-339.

IMPACTUL BETONULUI ASUPRA MEDIULUI

(Rezumat)

Industria cimentului şi betonului este într-o continuă dezvoltare. Utilizarea

betonului, precum şi a altor materiale cu caracter cimentoid, în corelaţie cu mediul
înconjurător prezintă avantaje precum şi dezavantaje. Se evidenţiază cîteva aspecte ale
impactului utilizării acestor materiale de construcţii asupra mediului înconjurător.