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Environmental impact assessment of the Egyptian cement industry based on a life-cycle assessment approach: a comparative study between Egyptian and Swiss plants

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Abstract

Egypt in 2015 announced the alteration of the fuels used in cement plants without the least regard to minimizing the environmental burden (EB) excesses. This study conducts a life-cycle assessment (LCA) of Egyptian cement-manufacturing unit, which is considered as the first one on LCA cement analysis to be conducted in Egypt. This study investigates the LCA of the cement industry in Egypt compared to the Swiss industry, using two methodologies. The first one has been done on-site, surveying the most common types of cement used in the construction industry in Egypt. Meanwhile, SimaPro software has been used to assess the environmental impacts, and three different cement plants were selected for this study: an Egyptian cement plant (ECP) which uses electricity, natural gas, and diesel as energy sources; a Swiss cement plant (SCP) which depends mainly on electricity, natural gas, and coal; and an Egyptian hypothetical plant (EHP) in which electricity and coal are assumed to be the main energy feeds, and comparisons of different strategies including midpoint and endpoint methods are outlined. Regarding the midpoint method, ETP recorded higher respiratory inorganics, aquatic acidification, global warming, and nonrenewable energy impacts than ECP, because of using coal, while for SCP, global warming and respiratory inorganics achieved the highest adverse impacts compared to ECP and EHP—due to the different manufacturing technology used. With regard to the endpoint method, the peak possibility of human health deterioration has been recorded due to the use of coal as fuel. This possibility was reduced by 46 % in the case of SCP as a result of the technology applied, which interestingly represents a reasonable reduction in terms of technological application.

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Notes

  1. The authors choose SCP owing to two reasons: first, the availability of the data, and the second, as it is operated by coal and has the same as that of the Egyptian technology in the cement industry.

  2. All the data and statistical numbers of SCP have copy rights to the Ecoinvent database, and the authors do not have the authorization to publish any of them.

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Acknowledgments

The first author would like to thank the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) for providing the financial support (Ph.D. scholarship) for this research, as well as the Egypt–Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) for offering the facility and tools needed to conduct this work. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank Ms. Anneke Haringsma who is responsible forSimaPro V8.1 and for purchasing the PhD license, and Ms. Linda Wegelin who is responsible for providing the Ecoinvent database for academically free access. Ultimately, the first author wishes to thank Eng. Ahmed Farghaly for his valuable support that helped in completing this research paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Engineering Department, Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST), New Borg El Arab City, P.O. Box 179, Alexandria, 21934, Egypt

    Ahmed AbdelMonteleb M. Ali, Abdelazim M. Negm, Mahmoud F. Bady, Mona G. E. Ibrahim & Masaaki Suzuki

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  1. Ahmed AbdelMonteleb M. Ali
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  2. Abdelazim M. Negm
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  3. Mahmoud F. Bady
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  4. Mona G. E. Ibrahim
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  5. Masaaki Suzuki
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Correspondence to Ahmed AbdelMonteleb M. Ali.

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Ali, A.A.M., Negm, A.M., Bady, M.F. et al. Environmental impact assessment of the Egyptian cement industry based on a life-cycle assessment approach: a comparative study between Egyptian and Swiss plants. Clean Techn Environ Policy 18, 1053–1068 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-016-1096-0

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