Use of blast furnace slag in cementitious materials for pavements - Systematic literature review and eco-efficiency

To reduce the environmental impact of Portland cement manufacturing and increase profits, the industry has been using some waste in cement composition; and blast furnace slag is one of the most used for this purpose. Thus, this work aims to carry out a systematic review of recent scientific literature focusing on applications of the use of this residue in pavements. The keywords: “Blast Furnace Slag” and "Cement replacement"; were used in the search using the Web of Science database. A total of 3731 articles published in the last five years were found, in which 33, with the word “pavement”, were selected. After applying the exclusion criteria, 20 articles were selected and analyzed for the present work. The main results published in the last five years that address the use of blast furnace slag in pavements, the effects on composites, the chemical composition and physical properties of the waste are summarized in this work. The highly cited articles, with more than 200 citations to date, dealing with the use of this residue in cementitious composites are also summarized. Additionally, based on the collected data, the life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed and showed that cement replacement by BFS reduces 48% CO2 emissions, saves 37% of energy, and provides 16.28% of cost economy in process. Therefore, this work demonstrates the high potential of this residue in contributing to the reduction of environmental impacts by reducing the extraction of raw materials, as well as by reducing the emission of polluting gases.