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General comment TYPE OF DATASET
For every chemical compound three datasets are created; the unit process (partially terminated system), the non-energy and transport component of the partially terminated system, and the cumulative life cycle inventory dataset (system process). For more information and flow chart see the report (ecoinvent, 2017, Data on the Production of Chemicals created for the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) pilot phase implementation, www.ecoinvent.org, ecoinvent Association, Z\xc3\xbcrich, Switzerland). This dataset represent the cumulative life cycle inventory dataset (system process).
PROCESS DESCRIPTION
The production volume of ethoxylated alcohols in Europe in 2000 was of 320000 tonnes per year (CESIO statistics 2000). 86% of this is estimated to be consumed in the region and the rest is exported (HERA 2002). Imports are not estimated to be significant (HERA 2002). Similar values are reported as consumed in the Union in the year 2002 (HERA 2009).
The distribution between the different average numbers of EO molecules added, is taken from table 3.8 in HERA (2009). EO7 are estimated to be 38% of the total.
The split between oleo and petro based ethoxylated alcohols is taken from Shah et al. (2016), the authors report 40% of production to be petrobased. Of the petrochemical based products 18 % is produced from the Ziegler process, while 82 % from the Oxo route. These shares are the ones currently used in version 3 of the ecoinvent database, Shah et al. (2016) confirm in their article that these shares are appropriate and represent the current practice.
The oleobased products are produced from palm kern and coconut oil, the split between these two is assumed to be 50% each. The production represents a mix of 27% produced from fatty acid splitting, 56% produced from methyl ester on the basis of crude vegetable oil and 17% from methyl ester out of refined oil.
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, Z\xc3\xbcrich, Switzerland
Gendorf (2016) Umwelterkl\xc3\xa4rung 2015, Werk Gendorf Industriepark, www.gendorf.de
CESIO statistics 2000. In: HERA 2002. Alcohol Ethoxysulphates (AES) Environmental Risk Assessment. Human & Environmental Risk Assessment on ingredients of European household cleaning products. Retrieved from: http://www.heraproject.com/files/1-e-04-hera%20aes%20env%20%20web%20wd.pdf, accessed 30 January 2017
HERA 2002. Alcohol Ethoxysulphates (AES) Environmental Risk Assessment. Human & Environmental Risk Assessment on ingredients of European household cleaning products. Retrieved from: http://www.heraproject.com/files/1-e-04-hera%20aes%20env%20%20web%20wd.pdf, accessed 30 January 2017
HERA 200p. Alcohol Ethoxylates Version 2.0 September 2009. Human & Environmental Risk Assessment on ingredients of European household cleaning products. Retrieved from: http://www.heraproject.com/files/34-f-09%20hera%20ae%20report%20version%202%20-%203%20sept%2009.pdf, accessed 30 January 2017
Shah et al. 2016. Comparison of Oleo- vs Petro-Sourcing of Fatty Alcohols via Cradle-to-Gate Life Cycle Assessment. J Surfactants Deterg. 19(6), pp. 1333\xe2\x80\x931351
Water content of the reference product: 0.0 kg
Biogenic carbon content of the reference product: 0.321663484987061 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 \xe2\x80\x9cthe unit processes contributing cumulatively to at least to 80% of the total environmental impact based on characterised and normalised results\xe2\x80\x9d. In addition to unit processes, direct emissions also qualified as input exchanges for this approach. For the normalization, the normalisation factors \xe2\x80\x9cEC-JRC Global (2010 or 2013), per person\xe2\x80\x9d 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 thinkstep. 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 thinkstep. This ensures that every demand for energy and transport, in the foreground and in the background, is supplied by a thinkstep dataset.
BILL OF MATERIALS
The bill of material includes the following inputs:
fatty alcohol: 0.416 kg
chemical factory, organics: 4e-10 unit
ethylene oxide: 0.556 kg
nitrogen, liquid: 0.019 kg
tap water: 0.026 kg
wastewater, average: -2.7e-06 m3
Electricity: 0.0676810844106 kWh
Thermal energy (MJ): 0.834646632707 MJ.
NOT INCLUDED EXCHANGES
The following exchanges have not been included in the inventory as they are not part of the official list of elementary exchanges published by the JRC. The EC and JRC were not able to provide an extended flow list during the duration of the data creation. If the JRC decides to include these exchanges in the master data, they may be added to the exchange section of the dataset by ecoinvent as part of a maintenance. The absence of these exchanges does not change the scores calculated with the ILCD recommended methods, but that might not be the case for other LCIA methods.
Fatty acid methyl ester, Emissions to air, Emissions to air, unspecified: 1.26e-15 kg
inland water bodies, Resources, Land occupation: 2.78e-05 m2*a
sodium hydroxide, Emissions to water, Emissions to water, unspecified: 4.65e-14 kg
sodium hypochlorite, Emissions to water, Emissions to water, unspecified: 8.65e-14 kg
PROCESS DIAGRAM LEGEND
The file 'chemical_dataset_diagram.jpg' presents the relationship between partially terminated datasets, energy and transport from datasets from thinkstep, and the aggregated inputs dataset. The aggregated inputs dataset is available on the node, under the name 'AlcoholEthoxylate (petro) production, 7 moles EO, aggregated inputs, RER.xml'
The following datasets from thinkstep are used as inputs of energy:
0.0677 kWh of Electricity from Electricity grid mix 1kV-60kV - EU-28+3
0.126 MJ of Thermal energy (MJ) from Thermal energy from hard coal - EU-28+3
0.186 MJ of Thermal energy (MJ) from Thermal energy from light fuel oil (LFO) - EU-28+3
0.523 MJ of Thermal energy (MJ) from Thermal energy from natural gas - EU-28+3
The following datasets from thinkstep are used as inputs of transport:
0.00452 metric ton*km of Transport from Barge - EU-28+3
0.00916 metric ton*km of Transport from Barge - ROW w/o EU-28+3
0.0307 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 3, Total weight >32 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.00226 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 3, Total weight 20-26 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.0133 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Total weight 20-26 t, mix Euro 0-5 - ROW w/o EU-28+3
0.00995 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Total weight 14-20 t, mix Euro 0-5 - ROW w/o EU-28+3
0.00663 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Total weight 28-32 t, mix Euro 0-5 - ROW w/o EU-28+3
0.00113 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 3, Total weight 28-32 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.00183 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 3, Total weight 14-20 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.00172 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 3, Total weight <7.5 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.00014 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 3, Total weight 12-14 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.000316 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 3, Total weight 7,5-12 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.0284 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 4, Total weight >32 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.000929 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 4, Total weight 20-26 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.00149 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 4, Total weight 12-14 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.00196 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 4, Total weight 14-20 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.00112 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 4, Total weight <7.5 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.000224 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 4, Total weight 7,5-12 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.0121 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 5, Total weight >32 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.000611 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 5, Total weight 12-14 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.000376 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 5, Total weight 20-26 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.000799 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 5, Total weight 14-20 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.000448 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 5, Total weight <7.5 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.000105 metric ton*km of Transport from Articulated lorry transport, Euro 5, Total weight 7,5-12 t (without fuel) - EU-28+3
0.333 metric ton*km of Transporting capacity from Transoceanic ship, containers - GLO
0.0839 metric ton*km of Transport from Freight train, diesel traction - EU-28+3
0.085 metric ton*km of Transport from Freight train, electricity traction - EU-28+3
0.00363 metric ton*km of Transport from Freight train, average (without fuel) - EU-28+3 |
