Mineral Carbonation for Carbon Sequestra

The increasing factitious carbon dioxide emission, mainly caused by fossil fuel combustion, has led to concerns about global warming. Reduction of carbon dioxide by mineral carbonation has been proposed as one of the most promising options. There are many effective starting materials and reaction routes for mineral carbonation. Recently, many studies have focused on the aqueous reaction of carbon dioxide with the alkaline earth minerals such as serpentine, olivine and wollastonite. However, these minerals need a lot of energy consumption and worry about environmental issues associated with mining operation. Therefore, the use of industrial waste instead of natural mineral as starting material has been proposed. The overall goal of this study was to develop a process to use industrial wastes such as waste cement powder and blast furnace slag. It was found that the industrial wastes were more reactive than natural minerals so that they could be reacted under mild conditions. Various experiments were performed to find efficient reactions routes to enhance carbonation process, minimizing energy consumption and costs.