Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 5037: The Effect of Additional Byproducts on the Environmental Impact of the Production Stage of Concretes Containing Bottom Ash Instead of Sand (Sustainability)

This study aims to assess whether using byproducts as additional binders can reduce the environmental damage of concretes that already contain bottom ash instead of sand. In particular, two concretes in which sand had been replaced by coal bottom ash at varying percentages (from 0 to 100 wt %) were evaluated in which (i) silica fume was an additional binder, and (ii) silica fume and blast furnace slag were additional binders. Consequential life cycle assessment was applied to environmentally evaluate the effect from the production stage of these byproducts. We used the ReCiPe2016 midpoint hierarchist and single-score (six methodologies) methods. A two-stage nested mixed analysis of variance was used to simultaneously evaluate the results of six ReCiPe2016 methodologies. The ReCiPe2016 midpoint hierarchist results indicate that using additional binders in both bottom ash-based concretes decreases global warming potential, terrestrial ecotoxicity, water consumption, and especially, fossil resource scarcity environmental impacts. The bottom ash-based concrete with silica fume and blast furnace slag as additional binders shows more environmental benefits than the bottom ash-based concrete with only silica fume. The ReCiPe2016 single-score method results indicate that the bottom ash-based alternatives with 40–100 wt % (with silica fume as an additional binder) and 75–100 wt % (with silica fume and blast furnace slag as additional binders) of sand replacement seem to cause the least environmental damage.