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Substantial global carbon uptake by cement carbonation

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 880–883 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Calcination of carbonate rocks during the manufacture of cement produced 5% of global CO2 emissions from all industrial process and fossil-fuel combustion in 20131,2. Considerable attention has been paid to quantifying these industrial process emissions from cement production2,3, but the natural reversal of the process—carbonation—has received little attention in carbon cycle studies. Here, we use new and existing data on cement materials during cement service life, demolition, and secondary use of concrete waste to estimate regional and global CO2 uptake between 1930 and 2013 using an analytical model describing carbonation chemistry. We find that carbonation of cement materials over their life cycle represents a large and growing net sink of CO2, increasing from 0.10 GtC yr−1 in 1998 to 0.25 GtC yr−1 in 2013. In total, we estimate that a cumulative amount of 4.5 GtC has been sequestered in carbonating cement materials from 1930 to 2013, offsetting 43% of the CO2 emissions from production of cement over the same period, not including emissions associated with fossil use during cement production. We conclude that carbonation of cement products represents a substantial carbon sink that is not currently considered in emissions inventories1,3,4.

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Figure 1: Annual carbon sequestration by cement 1930–2013.
Figure 2: Net cement emissions and annual sequestration rate 1930–2013.
Figure 3: Allocations of global historical cement process emissions 1930–2013.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by the NSFC (41473076, 41501605, 51578344, 31100346, 41629501, 71533005), Fund of Youth Innovation Promotion Association, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fund of Fellowships for Young International Distinguished Scientists in Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFA0602604), the UK Economic and Social Research Council funded project ‘Dynamics of Green Growth in European and Chinese Cities’ (ES/L016028/1), and the UK Natural Environment Research Council funded project ‘Integrated assessment of the emission-health-socioeconomics nexus and air pollution mitigation solutions and interventions in Beijing’ (NE/N00714X/1).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China

    Fengming Xi, Steven J. Davis, Lanzhu Ji, Longfei Bing & Jiaoyue Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of Pollution Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China

    Fengming Xi

  3. College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang 110168, China

    Fengming Xi & Tiemao Shi

  4. Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, USA

    Steven J. Davis

  5. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, CE Orme des 14 Merisiers, 91191 Gif sur Yvette Cedex, France

    Philippe Ciais

  6. Department of Land Economy, Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research, University of Cambridge, 19 Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EP, UK

    Douglas Crawford-Brown & Mark Syddall

  7. School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

    Dabo Guan

  8. Danish Technological Institute, Gregersensvej, 2630 Taastrup, Denmark

    Claus Pade

  9. College of Economy and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110000, China

    Jie Lv

  10. CAS Key Laboratory of Low-carbon Conversion Science and Engineering, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China

    Wei Wei

  11. Department of Plant Architectural Engineering, Kyonggi University, Gwanggyosan-ro 154-42, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, Kyonggi-do 16227, South Korea

    Keun-Hyeok Yang

  12. Swedish Cement and Concrete Research Institute, CBI Betonginstitutet, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

    Björn Lagerblad

  13. Department of Chemistry, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, UK

    Isabel Galan

  14. Eduardo Torroja Institute CSIC, Serrano Galvache 4, 28033 Madrid, Spain

    Carmen Andrade

  15. Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang 110016, China

    Ying Zhang

  16. Resnick Sustainability Institute, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

    Zhu Liu

  17. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

    Zhu Liu

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  1. Fengming Xi
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Contributions

F.X. and Z.L. designed the paper. F.X. conceived the research. F.X., C.P., T.S., J.W., K.H.Y., L.B., I.G., C.A. and P.C. provided the data from different countries and regions. T.S., F.X., J.W. and Y.Z. provided the survey statistics and experimental measurements data. S.J.D., F.X., Z.L., P.C., M.S. and D.C.B. performed the analysis. C.P., J.L., Z.L., L.J., P.C., K.H.Y., L.B., I.G. and Y.Z. provided the reference data. F.X., L.B., D.C.B., Z.L. M.S. and T.S. performed uncertainty analysis. S.J.D. and L.B. drew the figures. All authors contributed to writing the paper.

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Correspondence to Zhu Liu.

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Xi, F., Davis, S., Ciais, P. et al. Substantial global carbon uptake by cement carbonation. Nature Geosci 9, 880–883 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2840

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