Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Autoclaved Concrete Blocks and Fired Blocks in China

Abstract:

In this paper, a variety of blocks were grouped into the autoclaved blocks and fired blocks as far as the productive technology is concerned. In order to compare the life cycle impacts of the two kinds of the blocks, a life cycle assessment of two products on the functional unit 1m³ was carried out through the exploitation of mineral stage, transportation stage and the production of the blocks stage on the considering of the resource and energy consumption and the pollutant discharges. The results demonstrated that the fired blocks appeared to have less impact than autoclaved concrete blocks on human health, marine ecotoxicity toxicity and terrestrial ecotoxicity toxicity nearly 30%. The raw coal led to the serious impacts on the fossil depletion through the cement production stage of the autoclaved concrete blocks accounting for 45.86% and the gangue exploitation stage of the fired blocks accounting for 42.5%. Assessment of the data quality that the data was of pretty high or within the permission. The sensitivity analysis and contribution analysis assessment showed that the conclusion were robust.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 913)
• Pages: 1018-1026
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.913.1018
• Online since: February 2018
• Authors: Yan Qiong Sun*, Yu Liu, Su Ping Cui
• Keywords: Blocks, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Recipe

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