Fatty-acid layer to the biodiesel plant

What it is

Unallocated foreground LCI of Crude glycerol refining to USP glycerol (10 000 t/a, 99.7 wt%), case design, derived from the flowsheet by cheme assess lca.

Reference product

1 kilogram of Fatty-acid layer to the biodiesel plant (1.5 bar(a), 68.45 degC, 94 % FAME (mass))

CAS

not available

Code

glycerol-1:crude-glycerol-refining-to-usp-glycerol-10-000-t-a-99.7-wt:product:FAL

Dataset

crude-glycerol-refining-to-usp-glycerol-10-000-t-a-99.7-wt version 0.1.0 · UUID 054d1b00-1c5c-50d2-ae02-e33dd3721f07

Activity UUID

not available (the library assigns none; use the code)

Database

cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348 (version preview-c3ab348)

Process

Refined glycerol (USP) from biodiesel crude glycerol (10 000 t/a, concept)

Geography

GLO · background inputs with a site rule link at the user's site location (default DE)

Time period

2026 · valid until 2031

Technology

Crude glycerol refining: HCl acidulation, fatty-layer decanting, NaOH neutralisation, atmospheric methanol column, vacuum dewatering, vacuum still with live steam and salt centrifuge, activated carbon bleaching; 10 000 t/a glycerol 99.7 wt% · level current

Boundary

gate-to-gate foreground of the plant

Production volume

10,000,000 kg/a (product:GLYC per hour x operation.hours_per_year (8000 h/a))

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

shares, 12.7 % of the dataset to this product (rule deviation, from study)

D-013: the library hierarchy prefers subdivision or system expansion, then economic (price ratio) allocation. Subdivision is not possible (one acidulation serves all three outputs), substitution needs background datasets that are not linked at this stage and no sourced prices for refined glycerol and the fatty layer were collected in this run. Mass shares with the methanol as a return are a declared preliminary placeholder until prices are sourced and the crude-glycerol background is chosen.

Rights

CC-BY-4.0: the ChemE-as-Code process library's own concept design (LICENSE-DATA)

Exchanges per 1 kilogram of Fatty-acid layer to the biodiesel plant

As exported: allocated and scaled to the reference product. Provenance: 15 assumed. Pedigree scores (1 best, 5 worst): reliability, completeness, temporal correlation, geographical correlation, further technological correlation.

Elementary flows

No elementary flows are exported for this activity (pass-through emissions and free inputs are left out, see the caveats).

The streams are the plant's own flows: an amount here is allocated and per 1 kilogram of Fatty-acid layer to the biodiesel plant, so it differs from the stream's flow, and it can sum several streams.

Where these numbers come from: each exchange names its source above; the dataset is processes/glycerol-1/lca/dataset.yaml in library version c3ab348.

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

DQR 2.33 · PEF-style DQR 2.75

TeR 3 · GeR 3 · TiR 1 · P 4 · C 4 · weakest TeR · primary data 0 %

Mass and carbon closure

Assessed (lca/manifest.json balance, tolerance 5 %: design maturity concept (sourced screening))

• lci-carbon-origin: closed
• lci-element-balance: closed
• lci-mass-balance: closed

Change report

Not available: this build has no change report against an earlier release.

KPI benchmark positions

Not available: no benchmarked KPI for this dataset.

How to use it

Downloads

• cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348.xlsx · bw2io ExcelImporter workbook (bw2io 0.9 Excel layout) · the whole database
  code glycerol-1:crude-glycerol-refining-to-usp-glycerol-10-000-t-a-99.7-wt:product:FAL
• cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348-olca-jsonld.zip · openLCA JSON-LD (olca-schema) (2) · the whole database
  process 054d1b00-1c5c-50d2-ae02-e33dd3721f07 (processes/054d1b00-1c5c-50d2-ae02-e33dd3721f07.json) · the dataset's unallocated multi-output process; this product's allocation factor is in it
• cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348-multifunctional.json · Brightway 2.5 multifunctional database (JSON, for the multifunctional package) (cheme-as-code/lci-multifunctional/v1) · the whole database
  code glycerol-1:crude-glycerol-refining-to-usp-glycerol-10-000-t-a-99.7-wt · 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-c3ab348.xlsx", background="ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff", location="DE")
activity = bd.get_activity(("cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348", "glycerol-1:crude-glycerol-refining-to-usp-glycerol-10-000-t-a-99.7-wt:product:FAL"))

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

Fatty-acid layer to the biodiesel plant, from Refined glycerol (USP) from biodiesel crude glycerol (10 000 t/a, concept) (dataset crude-glycerol-refining-to-usp-glycerol-10-000-t-a-99.7-wt 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-c3ab348, activity glycerol-1:crude-glycerol-refining-to-usp-glycerol-10-000-t-a-99.7-wt:product:FAL. 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-c3ab348.

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

@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}
}

@unpublished{schweidtmann_cheme_as_code,
  author = {Schweidtmann, Artur M.},
  title = {{ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for AI-Accelerated Chemical Process Engineering (working title)}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://cheme-as-code.org},
  note = {in preparation}
}