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General comment 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
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, Zürich, Switzerland
Gendorf (2016) Umwelterklärung 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. 1333–1351
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:
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
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. |
