GWU develops cost-effective solar process to produce lime for cement without CO2 emission

A team at George Washington University has demonstrated a new solar process that can produce lime (CaO) for cement without any emission of carbon dioxide, and at lower projected cost than the existing cement industry process. Production of cement accounts for 5-6percent of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions, generating 9 kg of the greenhouse gas for each 10 kg of cement produced, notes Dr. Stuart Licht and his colleagues in a paper on their process accepted for publication in the RSC journal Chemical Communications. The majority of those CO2 emissions result from the production of lime. The Solar Thermal Electrochemical Production of CaO without CO2 (STEP Cement) process is based on the STEP theory of an efficient solar chemical process, based on a synergy of solar thermal and endothermic electrolyses, introduced by Licht and his colleagues in 2009.