Raffinate-1 (C4 raffinate), Raffinate-1 (butenes and butanes, with the isobutene)

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-raffinatePreliminaryReport 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 Raffinate-1 (C4 raffinate), Raffinate-1 (butenes and butanes, with the isobutene)
Chemical: c4-raffinate
CAS: not available
Code: butadiene-1:butadiene-c4-extractive-distillation:product:c4-raffinate
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, 59.2 % 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 Raffinate-1 (C4 raffinate), Raffinate-1 (butenes and butanes, with the isobutene)

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-raffinate
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-raffinate"))

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

Raffinate-1 (C4 raffinate), Raffinate-1 (butenes and butanes, with the isobutene), 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-raffinate. 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}
}