The cement industry produces around eight percent of global CO₂ emissions – more than the entire aviation sector worldwide.
The cement industry produces around eight percent of global CO₂ emissions – more than the entire aviation sector worldwide. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have developed an AI-based model that helps to accelerate the discovery of new cement formulations that could yield the same material quality with a better carbon footprint.
The rotary kilns in cement plants are heated to a scorching 1,400 degrees Celsius to burn ground limestone down to clinker, the raw material for ready-to-use cement. Unsurprisingly, such temperatures typically can't be achieved with electricity alone. They are the result of energy-intensive combustion processes that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO₂). What may be surprising, however, is that the combustion process accounts for less than half of these emissions, far less. The majority is contained in the raw materials needed to produce clinker and cement: CO₂ that is chemically bound in the limestone is released during its transformation in the high-temperature kilns.
One promising strategy for reducing emissions is to modify the cement recipe itself – replacing some of the clinker with alternative cementitious materials. That is exactly what an interdisciplinary team in the Laboratory for Waste Management in PSI’s Center for Nuclear Engineering and Sciences has been investigating. Instead of relying solely on time-consuming experiments or complex simulations, the researchers developed a modelling approach based on machine learning. “This allows us to simulate and optimise cement formulations so that they emit significantly less CO₂ while maintaining the same high level of mechanical performance,” explains mathematician Romana Boiger, first author of the study. “Instead of testing thousands of variations in the lab, we can use our model to generate practical recipe suggestions within seconds – it's like having a digital cookbook for climate-friendly cement.”
Read more at Paul Scherrer Institute
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