Life cycle assessment of binary recycled ceramic tile and recycled brick waste-based geopolymers

Abstract

This paper consists of a life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis on an experimental study to produce recycled brick waste (RBW) and recycled ceramic tile (RCT) based geopolymers. The LCA analysis is done following ISO 14040 standards on GaBi software for geopolymers produced with different ingredients ratios and curing types/regimes. The binary geopolymer comes from RBW + RCT (Phase I) as aluminosilicate sources and alkaline solutions. The ternary geopolymer (Phase II) studied includes Class C Fly ash (FC) in addition to the RBW + RCT. And finally, for Phase III, the binary geopolymer is cured at 100 °C. The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methodology using TRACI 2.0 and the GaBi databases is used to calculate the following impact categories: Global Warming Potential (GWP), Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) and smog. The LCA analysis is also modelled on a large-scale industrial basis. This results in decreased environmental impacts, and they are 1352 kg CO2-eq, 3.01 kg SO2-eq, 0.19 kg N-eq, 6.56E-9 kg CFC 1-eq for GWP, AP, EP, and ODP, respectively.