Environmental performance of refractories: A state-of-the-art review on current methodological practices and future directions

The growing emphasis on sustainable industrial practices has intensified the need for environmental assessments of refractory materials, which are integral to high-temperature processes across sectors such as metallurgy, cement, and glass production. This review examines the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprint (CF) to refractories, providing an in-depth analysis of current practices, key challenges, and potential paths for improvement. This review identified the system boundaries definition, the choice of the impact assessment methodology and the data quality as key methodological challenges driving the quality, accuracy, reliability and comparability of LCA studies. Recognising such challenges, this article advocates for standardised guidelines to enhance and homogenise methodological practices, guarantee cross-study comparisons, and efficiently support decision-making for sustainability. Additionally, transitioning from CF to LCA approaches is emphasised to avoid trade-offs across environmental impact categories. Lastly, establishing a collaborative network for data collection and sharing is fundamental to address the data quality criticality and enlarge the system boundaries both upstream and downstream. Finally, this review identified common trends in critical environmental domains and impacting processes. • Life cycle assessment studies of refractories were reviewed. • Energy supply is a hot spot for refractories and raw materials production. • Variations in scope and functional units compromise comparability among LCA studies. • Data quality issues and uncertainties are underreported, reducing transparency. • A harmonized LCA methodological framework is needed to enhance result quality.