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Erschienen in:
11.06.2020 | LCI METHODOLOGY AND DATABASES
Should we neglect cement carbonation in life cycle inventory databases?
Erschienen in: The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment | Ausgabe 8/2020
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Abstract
Purpose
This study assesses the effect of including CO2 uptake by cement-containing materials (CCM) in background life cycle inventories, on comparative life cycle assessments.
Methods
The carbonation of CCM consumed by transforming activities in the ecoinvent database is estimated. The uncertainties around parameters that affect cement carbonation (e.g., geometry and environment types) are approximated by error propagation. Five pairwise comparisons of functionally equivalent product systems are conducted in two parallel Monte Carlo simulations to isolate the effect of cement carbonation using pre-sampled values.
Results and discussion
Based on the five comparative assessments, there is a maximum probability of 3.7% that including cement carbonation in background inventories of ecoinvent can affect end results to the extent of changing conclusions. While a probability of 3.7% is admittedly low, this finding is exclusively based on ecoinvent inventories. Therefore, should the inventories rely on background activities that consume CCM to a larger extent, or from another database, this probability may be higher.
Conclusions
It is difficult to state whether including cement carbonation in background inventories is likely to significantly change the outcome of a comparative study. It seems though that neglecting cement carbonation in background inventories currently creates, at best, a mild bias in favor of CCM-poor product systems. Given the clear and easy-to-implement method presented in this study, the authors recommend including cement carbonation in the future development of life cycle inventory databases.