CO₂ mineral carbonation using industrial solid wastes : A review of recent developments

CO₂ mineral carbonation is a promising strategy to abate global warming. However, its industrial applications were still limited. This paper reviews the current developments of mineral carbonation technologies by using industrial solid wastes as feedstocks, aiming at searching the reasons of its limitation. Firstly, the pathways and principles for CO₂ mineral carbonation are briefly introduced. Then, the carbonation potential and processes of the most representative and available industrial solid wastes are summarized and compared. Iron and steel slags exhibit great potential due to their high alkali content and reactivity. Based on the preliminary economic analysis, the reasons for the limitation of current scale-up applications of CO₂ mineral carbonation are the concerns of energy and cost consumption. The process parameter optimization and equipment design for scale-up applications need to be extensively investigated. Meanwhile, the recovery of high-value products during the carbonation process improves the economy and make the process more promising for industrial applications. The feasibility for recovering various value-added byproducts such as precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) and zeolites was reported and discussed in this paper. Lastly, two research directions, i.e. the evaluation of CO₂ net emission reduction by life cycle assessment technique and developments of new energy-saving approaches, are suggested.