CO2 capture opens new _{doors for cement companies to mitigate warming}

Cement manufacturing plants are among the activities that contribute the most to warming. Cement manufacturing is responsible for 8% of CO₂ emissions released into the atmosphere, followed by energy production and transportation, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). However, this is one of the industrial sectors where decarbonization is most difficult. Meanwhile, in this context, the first initiatives are emerging for the implementation of technologies aimed at capturing this CO₂ so that it stops being released into the atmosphere. It sounds like science fiction, but it can be less and less so. The decarbonization effort (elimination of these CO₂ emissions) should be enormous in the cement sector in the coming years. Climate protection policies and the sector’s own commitments set the ambitious goal of achieving a 0 emissions balance by mid-century. The high CO₂ emissions in these factories occur in two main areas of their production process. On the one hand, conventionally, the manufacture of cement uses fossil fuels for the manufacture of clinker (the base material used to obtain cement), which entails high emissions of CO₂ and other gases. On the other hand, emissions inherent to the production process occur when the limestone (calcium carbonate) must be decomposed to extract the CO₂ and produce the clinker. Emissions in this part of the process account for 60% of the total emitted into the air by cement plants (the rest come from combustion).

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