Name: THALYA FORTUNA VIEIRA
Publication date: 29/09/2025
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ALEX MILTON ALBERGARIA CAMPOS | Examinador Externo |
| GEILMA LIMA VIEIRA | Examinador Interno |
| LUIZ ALEXANDRE KULAY | Coorientador |
| RUDIELE APARECIDA SCHANKOSKI | Presidente |
| THIAGO OLIVEIRA RODRIGUES | Examinador Externo |
Summary: The materials used in civil construction, especially Portland cement, have a significant environmental impact. To reduce these negative environmental consequences, replacing natural raw materials with steel byproducts is a technically feasible practice in several segments of this industry. An effective tool for calculating and quantifying these environmental impacts is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This master's thesis aims to conduct a comparative study of cements that incorporate granulated blast furnace slag (CP III), analyzing different allocation methods: by mass, by energy, by economic allocation, and even the non-application of the allocation procedure. For comparison, Portland cement without the addition of type V slag (CP V) was used as a reference. The LCA technique was applied to a cradle-to-gate scope of the cement plant, with a reference flow of 1 ton of cement. To construct the inventory, we used primary data (obtained directly from cement and steel mills) and secondary data (from the literature and the Ecoinvent database). Data entry, impact simulations, and uncertainty analysis were performed using SimaPro® software. Sensitivity analyses were conducted with different slag contents incorporated into the cement. Four energy scenarios were also evaluated: wind, hydroelectric, photovoltaic, and the typical Brazilian scenario. At the end of the simulations, it was concluded that CP III cement has better environmental performance than CP V for all impact categories analyzed. In the global warming category, according to the IPCC 2021 method, the impacts of CP III are 70% lower than CP V. Replacing the thermoelectric energy grid with wind energy minimizes CO2 emissions by up to 25%.
Keywords: life cycle assessment, cement, granulated blast furnace slag, environmental impact, sustainability.
