Carbon emissions assessment of cement mixing piles for soft loess improvement and carbon emission reduction using white mud-cement composite material
Zhijia Xue, Wenfeng Zhu, Liang-Chen Li, Chao Jiang, Changgen Yan, Yaxin Wang, Jianqiang Gao, Luo Jiang
Abstract
During the highway construction in the soft loess region of Northwestern China, there are always tens of thousands of cement mixing piles were used. Which generates a large amount of carbon emissions, thereby affecting the environment. The Simplified Energy and Emissions Assessment Model (SEEAM) is used to quantify carbon emissions considering monitoring data of IoT (Internet-of-Things) system. To reduce the error of the carbon emissions of large samples, Monte Carlo simulation was used to quantify carbon emissions based on the small samples. The results showed that cement had a 47,530.78 t carbon missions contributing the 95.64% of the total carbon emissions. To concurrently ensure strength and reduce carbon emissions, this study investigates the unconfined compressive strength variations in white mud-cement composite material solidified soft loess. It indicated that 10% and 20% white mud provided an alkaline environment and nucleation sites for cement hydration reactions, combining the filling voids. According to the observation results of TG and SEM, the addition of 10% white mud increased the quantity of early hydration product CSH in cement. Which maintained a high level of strength by comparing the cement mixing soft loess. In addition, when the white mud content is 50%, the white mud-cement composite material reduced 578% carbon emissions in the cement mixing pile engineering. This study can provide guidance for the selection of engineering construction design schemes, as low-carbon emission schemes are conducive to green and sustainable development of the environment.