MP steam raised in the converter (2800 kPa(a))

Activity Methanol synthesis loop and purification (2500 t/d Grade AA, natural-gas syngas), GLO: the inventory of 1 kilowatt hour of its reference product, attributional, cut-off.

Calculation maturity: not assessed Design maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewedmethanol-1:methanol-synthesis-loop-and-purification-2500-t-d-grade-aa:product:MPSPreliminaryReport 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

Unallocated foreground LCI of Methanol synthesis loop and purification (2500 t/d Grade AA), case design, derived from the flowsheet by cheme assess lca.

Reference product
1 kilowatt hour of MP steam raised in the converter (2800 kPa(a))
CAS
not available
Code
methanol-1:methanol-synthesis-loop-and-purification-2500-t-d-grade-aa:product:MPS
Dataset
methanol-synthesis-loop-and-purification-2500-t-d-grade-aa version 0.1.0 · UUID 678ca614-7b94-5eba-870c-71f56cc4d451
Activity UUID
not available (the library assigns none; use the code)
Database
cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348 (version preview-c3ab348)
Process
Methanol synthesis loop and purification (2500 t/d Grade AA, natural-gas syngas)
Geography
GLO · background inputs with a site rule link at the user's site location (default DE)
Time period
2026 · valid until 2031
Technology
low-pressure methanol synthesis on Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 in a boiling-water converter, recycle loop with purge, LP flash, topping and refining columns; electric compressor drives; 2500 t/d · level current
Boundary
gate-to-gate foreground of the plant
Production volume
871,365,600 kg/a (product:MEOH per hour x operation.hours_per_year (8400 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
exergy, 3.7 % of the dataset to this product (rule deviation, from study)
Neither curated physical rule fits: the products do not come from one separation, and LHV cannot apply because the steam has no heating value. The WBCSD price ratio does not apply either: the steam is counted in kWh, and no sourced prices exist at concept. Exergy is chosen because the library allocates exported steam and fuels by energy or exergy, and exergy is the one basis common to the three products (DESIGN.md D-015).
Rights
CC-BY-4.0: the ChemE-as-Code process library's own concept design (LICENSE-DATA)

Exchanges per 1 kilowatt hour of MP steam raised in the converter (2800 kPa(a))

As exported: allocated and scaled to the reference product. Provenance: 2 assumed, 3 calculated. 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.
InputAmountUnitProvenancePedigreeLinked to
Make-up synthesis gas from reforming
feed:SYNGAS
Make-up synthesis gas (S1; H2, CO, CO2, CH4, N2; ASSUMED composition, D-004) at the battery limit, 2600 kPa(a): connect to the plant's reformer section (natural gas, oxygen or steam, fired duty, gas cooling), which is outside this boundary (D-001). No background of this composition is known to the library, and registry hydrogen or methane is not this gas. The purge (product:PURGE) fuels that reformer: its fuel credit belongs in this future link, as less fired fuel in the reformer section, not in an allocation here (D-015).
From stream S1
0.07493kilogramassumed4 4 1 3 3unlinked
unlinked, no technosphere mapping: no mapping (no chemical slug or factor id); add it to lci/mappings.yaml technosphere or to the process's lca/mappings.yaml exchanges
Electric power
feed:POWER
Electricity for the make-up compressor K-101 and the circulator K-102 (Q1, Q3; electric drives ASSUMED, D-010): connect to a market for electricity, medium voltage, of the site's country.
electricity
From streams Q1, Q3
0.01079kilowatt hourcalculated3 4 1 3 3market for electricity, medium voltage (electricity, medium voltage, DE, site location) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
LP steam 450 kPa(a)
feed:LPS
LP steam 450 kPa(a) to the column reboilers (Q6, Q8; D-009), per kWh of heat delivered: connect to heat from steam in the chemical industry, or the reformer's waste heat system once the front end is designed.
steam, LP, 147.65 degC, 4.5 bar(a)
From streams Q6, Q8
0.05763kilowatt hourcalculated3 4 1 3 3Atlas: heat from steam, per kWh (Atlas unit proxy) (heat from steam, by energy, GLO)
Refining column bottoms water
product:WW
Refining column bottoms water (S19, 100 ppm(wt) methanol, ASSUMED, D-008): connect to treatment of wastewater, per kg or m3, at the site's effluent treatment.
From stream S19
0.00788kilogramassumed4 4 1 3 3Atlas: wastewater to treatment, per kg (Atlas unit proxy) (wastewater, by mass, GLO)
Cooling water return
product:CW
Heat rejected to the site cooling water system (Q2, Q5, Q7, Q9, 298/308 K, D-009): connect to cooling water supply / heat rejection in an evaporative cooling tower, per kWh of heat removed. Q9 is the C-202 condenser only: the product cooler (about 2 MW by a hand estimate, D-014) is not modelled, so this exchange is low by that amount.
cold, 25 degC
From streams Q2, Q5, Q7, Q9
0.09653kilowatt hourcalculated3 4 1 3 3Atlas (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

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 kilowatt hour of MP steam raised in the converter (2800 kPa(a)), 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/methanol-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 2.6
TeR 3 · GeR 3 · TiR 1 · P 3.4 · 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

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", "methanol-1:methanol-synthesis-loop-and-purification-2500-t-d-grade-aa:product:MPS"))

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

MP steam raised in the converter (2800 kPa(a)), from Methanol synthesis loop and purification (2500 t/d Grade AA, natural-gas syngas) (dataset methanol-synthesis-loop-and-purification-2500-t-d-grade-aa 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-c3ab348, activity methanol-1:methanol-synthesis-loop-and-purification-2500-t-d-grade-aa:product:MPS. 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)

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, in preparation). ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for AI-Accelerated Chemical Process Engineering (working title).

BibTeX
@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}
}