Environmental aspects of woody biomass ash incorporation in concrete blocks

T. P. da Costa1,*, P. Quinteiro1, L. Tarelho1, L. Arroja1, A. C. Dias1

1 Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro,
Aveiro, Portugal
*tamiris@ua.pt.

Energy from woody biomass can be very positive for the climate,
particularly when applying sustainable forest management practices,
and when the wastes are reused efficiently. An annual production of
200 thousand tons of ash is estimated, from power plants fuelled by
forest biomass currently in operation in Portugal. It makes urgent to
search for alternative usages for biomass ash, since the ashes are
typically disposed in landfills (around 90 % in Portugal). In this
context, the purpose of this work is to evaluate the environmental
impacts or benefits associated to woody biomass ashes incorporation
in concrete blocks production, considering several scenarios. The
results showed that all the valorisation scenarios have a better
environmental performance than ash disposal at landfills. Moreover,
the production of concrete blocks appears to be a suitable alternative
for both type of ashes, but the avoided impacts are higher using fly
ashes replacing cement in 10 %.

Introduction
Energy is a requirement in our everyday life as a way of
improving human development leading to economic growth and
productivity. The forest biomass utilization as a way of mitigate
climate change in the energy production sector is an excellent
way but needs to be sustainable in order to ensure the
environmental benefits.
A fundamental issue that should be investigated when using
forest biomass to produce energy relates to the quality of ash
produced during the combustion. However, the ashes may be a
valuable resource in concrete industry, since it has been
successfully used for more than 50 years, primarily as mineral
admixture in Portland cement concrete [1].
The aim of this work is to evaluate the environmental impacts of
woody biomass ash from a fluidized bed in concrete blocks
production. Different scenarios were assessed considering two
types of ashes (bottom and fly) from fluidized bed furnaces,
besides the base scenario (landfilling).
Methods
The functional unit used in this study is the disposal/valorisation
of one ton of woody biomass ash. The ashes under study are
generated from the combustion of eucalyptus and maritime pine
in a fluidized bed to produce energy. In all alternatives, a cradle-
to-grave approach was applied. The system boundaries include
the transport of the woody biomass ash from the power plant to
its destination (landfilling or valorisation), the on-site processes
and the production of materials/energy consumed in each
scenario, as shown in the Graphical Abstract. Furthermore, in
the valorisation scenarios, the avoided burdens are also included
in the system boundaries through the substitution approach.
The characterisation factors used in this study were those
suggested in the International Reference Life Cycle Data System
(ILCD) [2]. The impact categories selected for the analysis were
those for which sufficient inventory data were available, namely,
climate change, freshwater eutrophication and mineral and fossil
depletion.
 Landfilling
The base scenarios are fly ash landfilling and bottom ash
landfilling. During landfilling, there are two main pollutant
flows – landfill gas and leachate. According to the wood ash
landfill process on Ecoinvent database [3], the landfill gas is
partially captured and used to produce electricity that is
consumed during the short-term leachate treatment in
wastewater treatment plant.
 Concrete production
The operations to produce concrete blocks comprise raw
materials processing (Portland cement, sand, gravel and water)
and transportation, mixing, consolidation and curing. The
packing and storage were also included in the inventory taken
from Ecoinvent database [3].
When woody biomass ash is used in concrete blocks
production, it is necessary a sieving process before mixing with
the remaining materials to select the desired particle size. The
proportion and type of ash most appropriate for cement mortar
production was determined based on previous studies [4,5,6,7].
In terms of workability, it was found that compositions
containing up to 10 % of fly ashes were the ones that obtained
the best results for the replacement of cement. When the
objective is to replace the aggregates, the maximum percentage
of substitution can reach up to 20 % with bottom ashes.
Therefore, the valorisation scenarios are as follows:
 Concrete blocks production with fly ashes replacing cement
by 10 %.
 Concrete blocks production with bottom ashes replacing
aggregates by 20 %.
Results impact for all impact categories. The most cost intensive
component in concrete blocks are the cement utilization.
Figure 1 presents the net impact of the valorisation scenarios
(grey) and the impact associated to the base scenarios. If the net The replacement of 10 % of cement by fly ash to produce
impact is greater than zero, the environmental impacts are higher concrete blocks appears to be an appropriate alternative for the
than the avoided burdens associated with substitution. If the net valorisation of fly ashes. The net impacts in climate change
impact is less than zero the environmental impacts are lower that category were -770 kg CO2-eq, and the most emission intense
the avoided burdens. process is cement utilization, which is responsible for 94 % of
total impact and CO2 emission represents 92 % of the total
impact.
200
Climate change (kg CO2 eq)

The net impacts in freshwater eutrophication category were -

0 0.05 kg P-eq. The impact is mostly originated from the emission
Fly Bottom of phosphate (98 % of total impact) and the process that favours
-200 this impact category is the use of cement. In the mineral and
fossil depletion, the net impacts were -0.71 g Sb-eq. The impact
-400 is mostly originated from the consumption of indium (44 % of
total impact) and uranium (32 % of total impact), due to the use
-600
of cement (63 %).
-800
The production of concrete replacing 20 % of the aggregates by
bottom ashes did not present net impacts because the process
0.02 with more environmental burdens in the concrete production is
not the use of aggregates, but the use of cement. Therefore, the
Freshwater eutrophication (kg P eq)

0.01
impacts related to ash transportation exceed the impacts of
0.00 aggregates extraction and processing. Nevertheless, the impact
Fly Bottom caused in this scenario is lower than the impacts of its landfill
-0.01 disposal.
-0.02
Conclusion
-0.03
The management alternatives for the woody biomass ash
-0.04
generated in a fluidized bed showed that the type of ash (bottom
-0.05 or fly) interfere in the environmental impacts. The production of
concrete appears to be a good alternative for both type of ashes,
-0.06 but the avoided impacts are higher using fly ashes. Nevertheless,
the environmental impact result from ash landfill is always
0.1 higher than in any valorisation scenario.
Mineral and fossil depletion (g Sb eq)

0
Fly Bottom Acknowledgements
-0.1
The authors would like to thank CNPQ - Brazil for the
-0.2 scholarship granted to Tamíris Pacheco da Costa. The authors
-0.3 also thank the financial support for the project SABIOS
-0.4
(PTDC/AAGMAA/6234/2014) and SustainFor (PTDC/AGR-
FOR/1510/2014), both funded under the project 3599-PPCDT.
-0.5
-0.6 References
-0.7 [1] F. Faleschini, M. A. Zanini, K. Brunelli, C. Pellegrino,
Materials and Design, 85 (2015) 687–694.
-0.8
[2] EC, 2012. Characterisation factors of the ILCD
recommended life cycle impact assessment methods. Database
Valorisation scenario Landfill scenario and supporting information. European Commission, Joint
Research Centre, Luxembourg.
Figure 1. Net impact results in each scenario, according to the [3] Ecoinvent, 2017. Ecoinvent Database v. 3.4. Swiss Centre
type of ash. The results are shown for bottom and fly ash. The for Life Cycle Inventories, Dübendorf.
dot marked in each scenario depicts the impacts from ash landfill [4] R. Barbosa, N. Lapa, D. Dias, B. Mendes, Construction and
(base scenario). Building Materials, 48 (2013). 457–463.
[5] D. R. S. Bastos, Master thesis at Department of civil
For the landfill scenarios, fly ash presented the highest impact engineering at University of Aveiro (2014).
for all impact category. The contribution in the climate change [6] D. A. C. M. Dias, Mater thesis at Faculty of Science and
is related to the emissions of methane biogenic during landfill Technology in New University of Lisbon (2011).
gas incineration. In the freshwater eutrophication, the emission [7] J. Lessard, A. Omran, A. Tagnit-hamou, R. Gagne,
of phosphate to the water caused by the leachate contributed to Construction and Building Materials, 132 (2017) 565–577.
96 % of the total impact. In the mineral and fossil depletion, the
impact of ash landfilling was too small when compared to the
valorisation scenarios.

For the valorisation scenarios, it was observed that concrete

blocks production with fly ashes can avoided the environmental