"Green" Cement

Cement is one of the fundamental raw materials to promote the development of human civilization. From 2000 years ago pantheon art work of ancient Rome, to modern skyscrapers, highways, airports and docks, the trace of cement is everywhere. From the aspect of the total volume, the amount of cement used in the world is just after water.

However, cement manufacturing is one of the main emission sources of greenhouse gas, so cutting emission is naturally the top priority.  According to Mexico media reports, scientific research institution in Brazil had successfully developed a new technology using agricultural waste, such as bagasse or rice husk, as raw material to produce environment-friendly, and inexpensive “green” cement.

Using agricultural waste of bagasse and rice husk to make the “green” cement will not only reduce the pollution to the environment, it can also enable waste recycling, increase the added value to the agricultural products, and cut down the cement production cost at the same time.

Agriculture waste generated in many countries is mostly used as a fuel in the boilers for producing energy, processing paddy, through direct combustion or by gasification.  For example, in India, about a million tonnes of rice husk ash and sugarcane bagasse ash is produced annually.  Instead of dumping these ashes and cause great environment threat to the land and the surrounding area, making use of the ash as a replacement for concrete (about 15 to 20% of the whole cement material) certainly makes more sense.

Such replacement will significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, because the processing procedure of the agriculture waste is relatively easy, quick, and low energy consuming.  The manufacturing cost of such “green” cement is only one tenth of traditional cement.  Furthermore, its lifespan is longer than traditional cement, and the texture is much finer.

Brazil is rich in planting sugar cane. Its sugar cane annual production and export volume is ranking first in the world. Brazil sugar cane existing arable land is about 6.5 million hectares and sugar cane’s annual production is up to 550 million tons. Cement’s average annual production is about 45 million tons. If the bagasse ash in the cement mixture proportion is 15%, Brazil can reduce emissions of about 3 million tons of carbon dioxide a year!

Look into the future and stand at the angle of environment protection, it is important to continue making further research on how to fully reuse waste materials to make “greener” cement.

Sinobaler baling and bagging machine can help to press these loose materials into dense bales. Please visit us at http://www.sinobaler.com/application/rice-husk-baling-press/ for more information.