Valorização de resíduos como abordagem de ecoeficiência em termelétricas: o caso das cinzas pesadas de carvão mineral

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the eco-efficiency of the transformation of industrial waste in potential profitable co-products, as a business approach to reducing environmental impacts within the supply chain. The paper was based on to the following research question: How to measure the eco-efficiency of companies that value their industrial waste to allocate or offer them as alternative raw material for other industries? In this context, bottom ash resulting from the coal combustion in power plants was evaluated as a alternative raw material replacing sand in the production of ceramic materials and clinker in Portland cement industry, as an approach to eco-efficiency in power plants. The methodological procedures have been carried out in three phases: data collection through interviews; secondary data collection in thesis and periodical articles for the Life Cycle Assessment [LCA] preparation and the data evaluation. Pollutant emissions to atmosphere, water and soil were measured in numerical terms, relating to the production process of electric power and its waste, focused on bottom ash. All pollutants emissions to atmosphere, water and soil in numerical terms relating to the production process of sand and clinker were also measured. The evaluation has been carried out following the ABNT NBR ISO 14045 standard. The inventory calculation was based on primary data collected directly in the studied company and secondary data collected from the literature and regulatory agencies and analyzed by the software SimaPro. Within the limits of this research, it can be inferred that the eco-efficiency measure is carried out in two steps: 1) assessment of environmental impacts through research of the environmental aspects involved in the production process from the extraction of raw materials to the final disposal of waste and compare them to the production process to include the use of such waste. For this evaluation it was essential to measure LCA of waste (or wastes) to be evaluate and to compare the two processes (using and without using residue) so you can check what the major impacts are. Calculate the eco-efficiency of the process; 2) survey the probable cost’s uses of this waste in other production processes so that you can check for a monetary threshold that can afford possible valuation resulting from the new operations additions to the delivery of waste to another industrial sector. Based on these two phases it was possible to established eco-efficiency of the project, from both environmentally and economic perspectives. This research used the ReCiPe endpoint score method that presented the following results: a) Eco-efficiency of the generation of bottom ash for use in the ceramic industry compared with the generation of bottom ash by thermal plant and replacing the sand by the bottom ash in the production of ceramic tiles, thermal plant eco-efficiency spend 0.2% lower to 0.97% higher; b) Eco-efficiency of generation of bottom ash for use in cement industry compared with the generation of bottom ash by thermal plant and replacing the clinker by between 15-50%, have eco-efficiency values ranging from 2.4% to 11.5%. The use of bottom ash total replacement scenario of industrial sand in the production of ceramic tiles can use 91% of the amount spent on the acquisition of sand to buy the bottom ash. The use of bottom ash in the partial replacement scenario clinker in Portland cement production is that 91.4% of the clinker value can be used in the purchase of bottom ash. We can infer that it is possible to measure the eco-efficiency by measuring the environmental impacts through the ACV of the waste and, together, economically test the feasibility of their use.