C3 and C4 acetylenes purge of butadiene extraction, C3 and C4 acetylenes and heavies purge, to fuel use (co-product)

Activity 1,3-Butadiene by extractive distillation of a steam-cracker crude C4 cut, RER: the inventory of 1 kilogram of its reference product, attributional, cut-off.

Calculation maturity: not assessed Design maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewedbutadiene-1:butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation:product:c4-purgePreliminaryReport 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

Per 1 t of 1,3-butadiene, gate-to-gate, from the crude C4 cut of a naphtha steam cracker. Raffinate-1 (butenes and butanes) and the purge of C3 and C4 acetylenes to fuel use are co-products. Feed from a typical cut and a recovery bound; utilities as Western European averages.

Reference product: 1 kilogram of C3 and C4 acetylenes purge of butadiene extraction, C3 and C4 acetylenes and heavies purge, to fuel use (co-product)
Chemical: c4-acetylenes-purge
CAS: not available
Code: butadiene-1:butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation:product:c4-purge
Dataset: butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation version 0.1.0 · UUID 53807271-3c3f-5a24-89ae-dc517d868e93
Activity UUID: not available (the library assigns none; use the code)
Database: cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4 (version preview-a3c52e4)
Process: 1,3-Butadiene by extractive distillation of a steam-cracker crude C4 cut
Geography: RER · background inputs with a site rule link at the user's site location (default DE)
Time period: 1984 · valid until 2011
Technology: continuous extractive distillation with a polar solvent (NMP in the BASF process, also acetonitrile or DMF); the energy data are for C4 separation without the solvent stated; butadiene by dehydrogenation of butane or butenes is not modelled · level current
Boundary: gate-to-gate: extractive distillation with a polar solvent, solvent degassing, propyne and finishing columns; crude C4, steam and power from outside
Classification: ISIC Rev.4 2011 (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, 2.3 % of the dataset to this product (rule deviation, from dataset)
No sourced prices, so the WBCSD price ratio of butadiene, raffinate-1 and the purge cannot be computed. All three leave one physical separation as C3 and C4 hydrocarbons; mass is the preliminary choice. The purge goes to fuel use, so it is an exported fuel and a co-product (docs/system-model.md section 2), not an unlinked output; energy allocation (LHV) is not used because butadiene and raffinate-1 are not fuels. At 2.3 % of the product mass it takes 2.3 % of the burdens.
Rights: CC-BY-4.0

Exchanges per 1 kilogram of C3 and C4 acetylenes purge of butadiene extraction, C3 and C4 acetylenes and heavies purge, to fuel use (co-product)

As exported: allocated and scaled to the reference product. Provenance: 1 calculated, 3 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
Crude C4 cut of a naphtha steam cracker feed:crude-c4 butadiene over its content in the cut and its recovery (parameters x_bd and rec)	1	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 4 4	unlinked unlinked, no technosphere mapping: no mapping (chemical 'crude-c4'); add it to lci/mappings.yaml technosphere or to the process's lca/mappings.yaml exchanges
Electricity feed:electricity Saygin, D., Patel, M.K., Tam, C., Gielen, D.J. (2009) Chemical and Petrochemical Sector: Potential of best practice technology and other measures for improving energy efficiency. IEA Information Paper, OECD/IEA, Paris, Table 13, p. 50; GJ per t converted at 3.6 MJ/kWh electricity	0.0749	kilowatt hour	given	3 4 5 3 3	market for electricity, medium voltage (electricity, medium voltage, DE, site location) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Steam, as heat delivered feed:steam Saygin, D., Patel, M.K., Tam, C., Gielen, D.J. (2009) Chemical and Petrochemical Sector: Potential of best practice technology and other measures for improving energy efficiency. IEA Information Paper, OECD/IEA, Paris, Table 13, p. 50; final energy (heat duty), GJ per t converted at 3.6 MJ/kWh; pressure not stated	0.7811	kilowatt hour	given	3 4 5 3 3	Atlas: heat from steam, per kWh (Atlas unit proxy) (heat from steam, by energy, GLO)

Elementary flows

Flow	Direction	Compartment	Amount	Unit	Provenance	Pedigree
Butadiene 5064da53-d4ec-44ee-ba23-b20a4f8c4964	emission	air	1.863e-4	kilogram	given	4 4 5 4 4

Where these numbers come from: each exchange names its source above; the dataset is processes/butadiene-1/lca/datasets/butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation.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
Electricity per t of butadiene by C4 extraction	– kWh/t	250 to 250 kWh/t Neelis, M., Patel, M., Blok, K., Haije, W., Bach, P. (2007) Approximation of theoretical energy-saving potentials for the petrochemical industry using energy balances for 68 key processes. Energy 32:1104-1123, doi:10.1016/j.energy.2006.08.005 (publisher's version, deposited by ECN as ECN-W--08-030) (peer-reviewed)	not evaluated
Steam (heat delivered) per t of butadiene by C4 extraction	– kWh/t	1,786 to 1,786 kWh/t Neelis, M., Patel, M., Blok, K., Haije, W., Bach, P. (2007) Approximation of theoretical energy-saving potentials for the petrochemical industry using energy balances for 68 key processes. Energy 32:1104-1123, doi:10.1016/j.energy.2006.08.005 (publisher's version, deposited by ECN as ECN-W--08-030) (peer-reviewed)	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 butadiene-1:butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation:product:c4-purge
cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4-olca-jsonld.zip · openLCA JSON-LD (olca-schema) (2) · the whole database
process 53807271-3c3f-5a24-89ae-dc517d868e93 (processes/53807271-3c3f-5a24-89ae-dc517d868e93.json) · the dataset's unallocated multi-output process; this product's allocation factor is in it
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 butadiene-1:butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation · the dataset unallocated, with all its products; this product is its desired_code
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", "butadiene-1:butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation:product:c4-purge"))

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

C3 and C4 acetylenes purge of butadiene extraction, C3 and C4 acetylenes and heavies purge, to fuel use (co-product), from 1,3-Butadiene by extractive distillation of a steam-cracker crude C4 cut (dataset butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-a3c52e4, activity butadiene-1:butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation:product:c4-purge. 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}
}