Investigation of cement tiles from an environmental perspective: Life cycle assessment and environmental contamination

The present work investigates cement (hydraulic) tiles, an artisanal cement-based coating, from an environmental perspective. Although cement tiles are historically widely used, few studies about this material have been published. In this context, we estimated the embodied CO2 and the embodied energy through a life cycle assessment and explored the presence of potentially toxic components with a leaching test. The embodied CO2 and energy were estimated through indirect correlations made from primary data, collected directly with the manufacturers. No similar analysis has ever been done for cement tiles, so the present work introduces relevant primary data and information related the life cycle of this material. As a result, the average embodied CO2 of cement tiles is 8.3258 kgCO2/m2 (0.2504 kgCO2/kg) and their average embodied energy is 59.7547 MJ/m2 (1.8011 MJ/kg). Neither the cement tiles nor the water from their curing tanks was classified as toxic. In conclusion, cement tiles have an environmental impact similar to other wall and floor coatings.