Process Data set: methanol production; technology mix; production mix, at plant; 100% active substance (en) en
Process information
| Key Data Set Information | |
| Location | EU+EFTA+UK |
| Reference year | 2017 |
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Base name
; Treatment, standards, routes
; Mix and location types
; Quantitative product or process properties
methanol production; technology mix; production mix, at plant; 100% active substance
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| Use advice for data set | Notice: this data set supersedes the EF3.0-compliant version (see link under "preceding data set version" below calculated with the EF3.0). The life cycle inventory is not changed from the original EF3.0 data set. The LCIA results are calculated based on the EF3.1 methods which provide updated characterisation factors in the following impact categories: Climate Change, Ecotoxicity freshwater, Photochemical Ozone Formation, Acidification, Human Toxicity non-cancer, and Human Toxicity cancer. The review report and the data quality ratings refer to the original results. The data set has been updated by the European Commission on the basis of the original EF3.0 data set delivered by the data provider. |
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Class name
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Hierarchy level
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| General comment on data set | TYPE OF DATASET Each chemical compound is provided in aggregated (LCI results) and level-1 disaggregated (unit process, single operation) form. For more information, see the report (ecoinvent Association, 2020, Data on the Production of Chemicals created for the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) transition phase implementation, www.ecoinvent.org, ecoinvent Association, Zurich, Switzerland). This dataset represents the LCI results. PROCESS DESCRIPTION This dataset represents the production of 1 kg of methanol from natural gas. Methanol (CH3OH) is a clear, colourless, volatile liquid with a faint alcohol-like odour. Methanol is the simplest of the alcohols, having only one carbon atom, and is completely miscible in water. More than 70% of the methanol produced worldwide is used in chemical syntheses. In order of importance the produced methanol was used as follows: - Formaldehyde: 34% of production. - Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE): 28% of production. - Acetic acid: 10% of production. - Methyl methacrylate (MMA): 3% of production. - Dimethyl terephthalate (DMT). 2% of production. Only a small proportion is used for energy production (2% of production), although this use has great potential Commercial production of methanol is based on synthesis gas mixtures (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) derived primarily from natural gas. The activity starts when the raw materials enter the process. This activity ends with the production of methanol. The dataset includes the raw materials, processing energy, estimated catalyst use, emissions to air and water from the process, as well as the plant infrastructure. The use of CO2 is not included and the hydrogen that is produced during the process is assumed to be burned in the furnace. References ecoinvent (2017) Data on the Production of Chemicals created for the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) pilot phase implementation, www.ecoinvent.org, ecoinvent Association, Zürich, Switzerland Gendorf (2016) Umwelterklärung 2015, Werk Gendorf Industriepark, www.gendorf.de Althaus H.-J., Chudacoff M., Hischier R., Jungbluth N., Osses M. and Primas A. (2007) Life Cycle Inventories of Chemicals. ecoinvent report No. 8, v2.0. EMPA Dübendorf, Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories, Dübendorf, CH. Water content of the reference product: 0.0 kg Biogenic carbon content of the reference product: 0.0 kg DATA QUALITY ASSESSMENT The data quality ratings for the datasets were determined as the average of the 5 individual ratings for Technological Representativeness, Geographical Representativeness, Time-related representativeness, Precision/uncertainty, and implementation of the End of Life Formula. The final scores for these 5 descriptors were determined by the independent, external reviewer after a discussion with the internal reviewers. The basis for this determination was generally a contribution analysis of the material and energy inputs as well as direct resource uses and emissions. This process was required by the tender. The contribution analysis is based on the most important flows in the dataset, defined in the tender specifications as "the unit processes contributing cumulatively to at least to 80% of the total environmental impact based on characterised and normalised results". In addition to unit processes, direct emissions also qualified as input exchanges for this approach. For the normalization, the normalisation factors "EC-JRC Global (2010 or 2013), per person" available at http://eplca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/?page_id=140 were used. For each parameter, the DQR scores were chosen to best reflect the conditions and quality of the amount value, the appropriateness of the chosen exchange for the specific needs of the system under analysis, and the quality of the foreground and background data for aggregated inputs of exchanges from the technosphere, i.e. not direct emissions or resource uses. ENERGY AND TRANSPORT INFORMATION SOURCE Energy and transport was used in both the foreground and background of this dataset. When building the dataset, energy and transport demands were supplied directly by datasets provided by Sphera. The background for every other input from technosphere uses a modified version of the ecoinvent database, created specifically for the PEF. In this version, every instance of energy and transport supply, anywhere in the database, was replaced by a dataset from Sphera. This ensures that every demand for energy and transport, in the foreground and in the background, is supplied by a Sphera dataset. BILL OF MATERIALS The bill of material includes the following inputs: aluminium oxide: 0.00024 kg copper oxide: 9e-05 kg methanol factory: 3.72e-11 unit molybdenum: 1e-05 kg nickel, 99.5%: 2e-05 kg water, deionised, from tap water, at user: 0.85 kg zinc: 3e-05 kg Electricity: 0.074 kWh Natural gas, at consumer EU-27: 0.651794871795 kg Thermal energy (MJ): 6.93 MJ. NOT INCLUDED EXCHANGES All known elementary exchanges are included. PROCESS DIAGRAM LEGEND The file 'Diagram of data for chemicals EF3.0' presents the general structure of the processes created for the EF chemical data. A complete flow diagram for the selected process is available in the relevant section. |
| Copyright | Yes |
| Owner of data set | |
| Quantitative reference | |
| Reference flow(s) | |
| Biogenic carbon content | |
| Time representativeness | |
| Data set valid until | 2024 |
| Technological representativeness | |
| Technology description including background system | For normal methanol synthesis, reforming is performed in one step in a tubular reactor at 850 – 900 °C in order to leave as little methane as possible in the synthesis gas. For large methanol synthesis plants, Lurgi has introduced a two-step combination (combined reforming process) that gives better results. In the primary tubular reformer, lower temperature (ca. 800 °C) but higher pressure (2.5-4.0 MPa instead of 1.5-2.5 MPa) are applied. More recently, Lurgi developed another two-step gas production scheme. It is based on catalytic autothermal reforming with an adiabatic performer and has economical advantages for very large methanol plants. At locations where no carbon dioxide is available most of the methanol plants are based on the following gas production technologies, depending on their capacities: steam reforming for capacities up to 2000 t d-1 or combined reforming from 1800 to 2500 t d-1 (Ullmann 2001). For the energy and resource flows in this inventory a modern steam reforming process was taken as average technology. To estimate best and worst case values, also values from combined reforming and autothermal reforming were investigated. Methanol produced using a low pressure steam reforming process (ICI LPM) accounts for approximately 60% of the world capacity (Synetix 2000a). Besides steam reforming, combined reforming has gained importance due to the production of methanol in large plants at remote locations. The reaction of the steam-reforming route can be formulated for methane, the major constituent of natural gas, as follows: Synthesis gas preparation: CH4 + H2O → CO + 3 H2; ΔH = 206 kJ mol-1 CO + H2O → CO2 + H2; ΔH = - 41 kJ mol-1 Methanol synthesis: CO + 2 H2 → CH3OH; ΔH = -98 kJ mol-1 CO2 + 3 H2 → CH3OH + H2O; ΔH = -58 kJ mol-1 For an average plant the total carbon efficiency is around 75%, 81% for the synthesis gas preparation and 93% for the methanol synthesis (Le Blanc et al. 1994, p. 114). For steam reformers usually a steam to carbon ratio of 3:1 to 3.5:1 is used. As methanol production is a highly integrated process with a complicated steam system, heat recovery and often also internal electricity production (out of excess steam), there were only data of the efficiency and energy consumption of the total process available. Therefore the process was not divided into a reforming process, a synthesis process and a purification process for estimating the energy and resource flows. Also the energy and resource flows in the methanol production plants are site specific (dependent on the local availability of resources such as CO2, O2, or electricity). In this inventory typical values for a methanol plant using steam-reforming technology were used. |
| Flow diagram(s) or picture(s) | |
Modelling and validation
Administrative information
Inputs and Outputs
LCIA results