Ammonium sulfate, crystalline, fertilizer grade

Activity Ammonium sulfate by direct neutralisation of ammonia with sulfuric acid, GLO: the inventory of 1 kilogram of its reference product, attributional, cut-off.

Calculation maturity: not assessed Design maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewedammonium-sulfate-1:ammonium-sulfate-neutralisation:product:ammonium-sulfatePreliminaryReport a problem with this dataset

Research outputAn inventory from a research design at the design maturity its process states, not verified plant data: check its calculation maturity and review status before use. Background activities are referenced by name only; no background data is included. All caveats

What it is

Tier 0 screening estimate per 1 t of crystalline ammonium sulfate, gate-to-gate. Anhydrous ammonia and strong sulfuric acid react in a continuous vacuum saturator-crystallizer whose heat of reaction evaporates the water, so the crystallizer takes no external heat; the vapour is condensed against cooling water and returned. The crystals are centrifuged, dried in a steam-heated rotary dryer and screened. Feeds from stoichiometry with the sourced dryer dust; the heat rejected from the NBS enthalpies of formation; the dryer heat is our estimate from the sourced cake moisture; electricity an ASSUMED analogue.

Reference product: 1 kilogram of Ammonium sulfate, crystalline, fertilizer grade
Chemical: ammonium-sulfate
CAS: 7783-20-2
Code: ammonium-sulfate-1:ammonium-sulfate-neutralisation:product:ammonium-sulfate
Dataset: ammonium-sulfate-neutralisation version 0.1.0 · UUID 555921cc-064e-569a-9622-6a07e2ac0542
Activity UUID: not available (the library assigns none; use the code)
Database: cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4 (version preview-a3c52e4)
Process: Ammonium sulfate by direct neutralisation of ammonia with sulfuric acid
Geography: GLO · background inputs with a site rule link at the user's site location (default DE)
Time period: 1978 · valid until 2015
Technology: synthetic (on-purpose) ammonium sulfate by reaction crystallization; the caprolactam, coke-oven and other by-product routes are not modelled · level current
Boundary: gate-to-gate: saturator-crystallizer with vapour condenser, centrifuge, dryer with wet scrubber, screening; steam, power and cooling water from outside; storage and bagging outside
Classification: ISIC Rev.4 2012 (taxonomy/families.yaml (ISIC Rev.4) of the process's families)
System model: attributional, cut-off (docs/system-model.md, methodology 1.1.0)
Allocation: mass, 100 % of the dataset to this product (rule single-output, from default)
one product: nothing to allocate
Rights: CC-BY-4.0

Exchanges per 1 kilogram of Ammonium sulfate, crystalline, fertilizer grade

As exported: allocated and scaled to the reference product. Provenance: 5 calculated, 2 assumed, 1 given. Pedigree scores (1 best, 5 worst): reliability, completeness, temporal correlation, geographical correlation, further technological correlation.

Preliminary1 exchange is not yet linked to a background dataset. It counts no burden, so the inventory is incomplete: do not read a result from it as complete.

Input	Amount	Unit	Provenance	Pedigree	Linked to
Ammonia, anhydrous, refrigerated liquid feed:ammonia stoichiometry 2 NH3 + H2SO4 -> (NH4)2SO4 with the sourced dryer dust; compare the stoichiometric requirement 0.2578 t/t (UNIDO chapter VIII, Table 1); other losses are not counted (system_boundary.excluded)	0.2578	kilogram	calculated	4 4 4 4 4	Atlas (pinned): Ammonia from natural gas (1500 t/d, steam reforming with air-fed secondary reformer, Haber-Bosch loop) (Liquid ammonia product (refrigerated, to the battery limit), NL) compatible: grade the input names ammonia only; ammonia (Liquid ammonia product (refrigerated, to the battery limit)) is taken; unit kilogram; system model cutoff (one database); allocation exergy (deviation); boundary plant gate (pinned): no distribution or losses; the consumer's dataset counts its delivery
Sulfuric acid, 98.5 wt% feed:sulfuric-acid stoichiometry with the sourced dryer dust, counted as 98.5 wt% acid, the grade of sulfuric-acid-1 (compare the stoichiometric requirement of 0.7422 t/t as 100 % H2SO4, UNIDO chapter VIII, Table 1); the acid's water is in the water balance	0.7536	kilogram	calculated	4 4 4 4 4	Atlas (pinned): Sulfuric acid from sulfur burning, double contact / double absorption (1000 t/d, 98.5 wt%) (Sulfuric acid 98.5 wt% to storage, GLO) compatible: grade the input names sulfuric-acid only; sulfuric-acid (Sulfuric acid 98.5 wt% to storage) is taken; unit kilogram; system model cutoff (one database); allocation shares (deviation); boundary plant gate (pinned): no distribution or losses; the consumer's dataset counts its delivery
Process water, make-up to the centrifuge wash feed:water closes the water balance: the water the dryer evaporates less the water of the acid. ASSUMED: the vapour of the crystallizer is condensed and returned (the UNIDO chapter VIII and GEA 2010 describe the wash and scrubber liquors as recycled), so the dryer vapour is the only water leaving	0.004446	kilogram	calculated	4 5 4 4 4	market for water, deionised (water, deionised, RoW) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Electricity feed:electricity ASSUMED analogue, see parameter elec: the midpoint of the EFMA (2000) range for a new solid ammonium nitrate facility (LVIC-AAF BREF Table 9.3, p. 370); no open ammonium sulfate figure was read electricity	0.0425	kilowatt hour	assumed	4 4 4 4 5	market for electricity, medium voltage (electricity, medium voltage, DE, site location) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Steam to the rotary dryer's air heater, as heat delivered feed:steam our estimate: the water removed from the centrifuge cake (AP-42 8.4.2 moisture to the UNIDO product specification) times its latent heat, over an ASSUMED dryer efficiency. The crystallizer takes no steam: the heat of reaction of reasonably concentrated reactants evaporates the water without an external energy source (GEA Messo PT brochure 2010, PDF p. 4 and p. 6; UNIDO chapter VIII, Production Details); a plant with dilute or spent acid would need evaporator steam, which is not counted (GEA PDF p. 4: most ammonium sulfate crystallizers run in the steam-heated evaporative mode). AP-42 8.4.2 names steam-heated and oil- or gas-fired dryers; steam heating is ASSUMED	0.02092	kilowatt hour	assumed	4 5 4 4 4	Atlas: heat from steam, per kWh (Atlas unit proxy) (heat from steam, by energy, GLO)
Heat of reaction rejected to cooling water in the crystallizer vapour condenser output:cooling-water enthalpy balance at 25 degC: heat of reaction of 2 NH3 + H2SO4 -> (NH4)2SO4 from the NBS enthalpies of formation (Wagman et al. 1982), 274.6 kJ/mol with gaseous ammonia, less the 51.2 kJ/mol that the refrigerated liquid feed takes up to become gas (CoolProp 8.0.0): 223.4 kJ/mol, 1.69 GJ/t. The heat evaporates about 0.7 t of water per t in the saturator (GEA 2010, PDF p. 4: the heat of reaction does the evaporation); a vacuum saturator with a surface condenser rejects it to cooling water (ASSUMED; an atmospheric saturator would vent the vapour to air instead and take the same water as make-up). Feeds and product taken at 25 degC (ASSUMED: the sensible heat of the warm cake to the dryer, about 12 kWh/t, is not separated) cold, 25 degC	0.4697	kilowatt hour	calculated	4 4 4 4 4	Atlas (plant): cooling water service, per kWh heat rejected (Atlas screening proxy) (heat rejected to cooling water, GLO) compatible: grade the input names cooling-water only; cooling-water (Heat rejected to cooling water, 25/35 degC) is taken; unit kilowatt hour; carrier cold, 25 degC from cold, 25 degC; system model cutoff (one database); allocation mass (single-output); boundary plant gate of a site utility: no utility market yet (docs/markets.md)

Elementary flows

Flow	Direction	Compartment	Amount	Unit	Provenance	Pedigree
Water 075e433b-4be4-448e-9510-9a5029c1ce94	emission	air	1.581e-5	cubic meter	calculated	4 5 4 4 4
Ammonium sulfate dust to air, filterable particulate after the dryer's wet scrubber emission:PM unlinked unlinked, no biosphere mapping: emission of PM (literature) has no biosphere3 flow identity and is not in lci/mappings.yaml biosphere	emission	not linked	2e-5	kilogram	given	4 4 5 4 4

Where these numbers come from: each exchange names its source above; the dataset is processes/ammonium-sulfate-1/lca/datasets/ammonium-sulfate-neutralisation.yaml in library version a3c52e4.

Used by

No other activity of this database links to it.

How good it is

Review: Not reviewed: no LCI review record yet
Data quality: not available
Mass and carbon closure: Not available: a hand-written dataset: no lca/manifest.json records its balance
Change report: Not available: this build has no change report against an earlier release.

KPI benchmark positions

KPI	Value	Reference range	Position
Particulate to air from the ammonium sulfate dryer per t of product	– kg/t	0 to 0.15 kg/t US EPA (1980) Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources; Ammonium Sulfate Manufacture. Federal Register 45 (220): 74846, 12 November 1980; 40 CFR 60 subpart PP (government)	not evaluated
Electricity per t of ammonium sulfate No open source with an electricity figure for ammonium sulfate found (2026-11-05). Read: US EPA AP-42 section 8.4 and its background report (emissions only), the 1980 NSPS (control equipment energy only as a share of plant energy, no plant figure), the GEA Messo PT brochure (2010; pump power only as a ratio between crystallizer types), the UNIDO fertilizer manual chapter VIII (no utility figures), the LVIC-AAF BREF 2007 (no ammonium sulfate chapter). Not readable: Crystallization of Ammonium Sulphate, State of the Art and New Developments (ResearchGate, HTTP 403); CRU/BC Insight articles (paywalled). A web search (2026-11-05) found only university plant-design theses that state an installed electrical load in kVA. That is not consumption, so they were not used. The dataset's value is an ASSUMED analogue, the midpoint of the solid AN range of LVIC-AAF BREF Table 9.3 (25 to 60 kWh/t), not a check.	– kWh/t	not available	not evaluated
Steam, as heat delivered, per t of ammonium sulfate No open figure for the heat of an ammonium sulfate plant found (2026-11-05), in the sources listed under as-specific-electricity. GEA (2010, PDF p. 4) and UNIDO chapter VIII state qualitatively that a reaction crystallizer with concentrated reactants needs no external heat for evaporation; the dataset's value is the dryer only, our estimate with an ASSUMED efficiency. An evaporative (by-product) crystallizer is heated with steam and its energy is the main running cost (GEA 2010, PDF p. 6), so a figure for that route would not apply here.	– kWh/t	not available	not evaluated

How to use it

Downloads

cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4.xlsx · bw2io ExcelImporter workbook (bw2io 0.9 Excel layout) · the whole database
code ammonium-sulfate-1:ammonium-sulfate-neutralisation:product:ammonium-sulfate
cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4-olca-jsonld.zip · openLCA JSON-LD (olca-schema) (2) · the whole database
process 555921cc-064e-569a-9622-6a07e2ac0542 (processes/555921cc-064e-569a-9622-6a07e2ac0542.json)
cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4-multifunctional.json · Brightway 2.5 multifunctional database (JSON, for the multifunctional package) (cheme-as-code/lci-multifunctional/v1) · the whole database
code ammonium-sulfate-1:ammonium-sulfate-neutralisation:product:ammonium-sulfate
cheme_as_code_lci-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl · the installer

A file with this activity alone is not available: each file above is the whole database, and the line under it says how to find this activity there.

import bw2data as bd
from cheme_as_code_lci import install

bd.projects.set_current("my-project")   # holds your licensed background + biosphere3
install("cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4.xlsx", background="ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff", location="DE")
activity = bd.get_activity(("cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4", "ammonium-sulfate-1:ammonium-sulfate-neutralisation:product:ammonium-sulfate"))

While any exchange of the database has no mapping, install() writes nothing and only lists the unlinked exchanges. So the last line finds no activity until the gaps are mapped: the download section gives the ways to use the database now.

How to cite

Ammonium sulfate, crystalline, fertilizer grade, from Ammonium sulfate by direct neutralisation of ammonia with sulfuric acid (dataset ammonium-sulfate-neutralisation 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-a3c52e4, activity ammonium-sulfate-1:ammonium-sulfate-neutralisation:product:ammonium-sulfate. Cite the Process Atlas paper (in preparation, 2026), by Artur M. Schweidtmann and Jana M. Weber, and the ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database version preview-a3c52e4.

DOI: none yet (the Process Atlas paper is in preparation)

For the data, cite the Process Atlas paper; for the platform that builds and checks it, the ChemE-as-Code paper.

Schweidtmann, A. M. & Weber, J. M. (2026, in preparation). Process Atlas: an open, git-native, reproducible library and life cycle inventory of chemical processes (working title).

BibTeX

@unpublished{schweidtmann_process_atlas,
  author = {Schweidtmann, Artur M. and Weber, Jana M.},
  title = {{Process Atlas: an open, git-native, reproducible library and life cycle inventory of chemical processes (working title)}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://atlas.cheme-as-code.org},
  note = {in preparation}
}

Schweidtmann, A. M. (2026). ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for Agentic AI in Chemical Engineering. arXiv:2611.07947. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2611.07947

BibTeX

@misc{schweidtmann_cheme_as_code,
  author = {Schweidtmann, Artur M.},
  title = {{ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for Agentic AI in Chemical Engineering}},
  year = {2026},
  eprint = {2611.07947},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2611.07947},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.07947}
}