Calcium carbonate (lime) from the CNTH conversion, to CAN

Activity NPK 15-15-15 by the nitrophosphate (ODDA) route, with CNTH conversion to ammonium nitrate and lime, RER: the inventory of 1 kilogram of its reference product, attributional, cut-off.

Calculation maturity: not assessed Design maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewednpk-fertilizers-1:npk-nitrophosphate-odda:product:calcium-carbonatePreliminaryReport 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 per 1 t of NPK 15-15-15, gate-to-gate, integrated nitrophosphate complex without its ammonia and nitric acid plants. Feeds from the stoichiometry of a model rock and product with the NP-solution composition of the EFMA BAT booklet; utilities from AMI Linz and Dutch infoMil figures in the LVIC-AAF BREF; emissions from EFMA BAT levels and one plant. Ammonium nitrate and calcium carbonate from the conversion are co-products.

Reference product: 1 kilogram of Calcium carbonate (lime) from the CNTH conversion, to CAN
Chemical: calcium-carbonate
CAS: 471-34-1
Code: npk-fertilizers-1:npk-nitrophosphate-odda:product:calcium-carbonate
Dataset: npk-nitrophosphate-odda version 0.1.0 · UUID f0a4da2f-8db9-5585-bb94-caddd1925b29
Activity UUID: not available (the library assigns none; use the code)
Database: cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4 (version preview-a3c52e4)
Process: NPK 15-15-15 by the nitrophosphate (ODDA) route, with CNTH conversion to ammonium nitrate and lime
Geography: RER · background inputs with a site rule link at the user's site location (default DE)
Time period: 2000 · valid until 2007
Technology: nitrophosphate (ODDA) process: digestion in about 60 % HNO3, cooling crystallisation of calcium nitrate tetrahydrate, ammoniation of the nitrophosphoric acid, spherodiser or drum granulation; the mixed-acid route and CN fertiliser instead of conversion are not modelled · level current
Boundary: gate-to-gate: rock digestion in nitric acid, sand removal, CNTH crystallisation and filtration, CNTH conversion with NH3 and CO2 to CaCO3 and AN solution, AN evaporation, neutralisation, potash addition, granulation, drying, cooling, coating; ammonia, nitric acid, CO2, steam and power from 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, 19.5 % of the dataset to this product (rule deviation, from dataset)
Subdivision (step 1 of the hierarchy) is not applied: the sources give the electricity, steam, natural gas, compressed air and the combined-scrubber emissions only per t of NPK for the whole complex, not per section, so splitting the dataset into a digestion-and-conversion part and an NPK finishing part would need an ASSUMED split of every utility (TODO). The potash, the filler, the dryer gas and the neutralisation and granulation serve only the NPK, so mass allocation gives the AN and the lime (43 % of the product mass) a share of burdens they do not cause. No sourced prices, so the WBCSD price ratio cannot be computed; allocation by nutrient content (N, P2O5, K2O) would give the NPK about 75 % instead of 57 %. Mass is the preliminary choice.
Rights: CC-BY-4.0

Exchanges per 1 kilogram of Calcium carbonate (lime) from the CNTH conversion, to CAN

As exported: allocated and scaled to the reference product. Provenance: 8 calculated, 1 assumed, 11 given. Pedigree scores (1 best, 5 worst): reliability, completeness, temporal correlation, geographical correlation, further technological correlation.

Preliminary11 exchanges are not yet linked to a background dataset. They count no burden, so the inventory is incomplete: do not read a result from it as complete.

Input	Amount	Unit	Provenance	Pedigree	Linked to
Phosphate rock, sedimentary (model: fluorapatite, calcite, fluorite, silica) feed:phosphate-rock stoichiometry: all the product's P from the rock (the P2O5 lost to water, about 0.04 %, is not added); the model rock has 33.6 % P2O5 against 33.4 % in the cited analysis (see parameter M_R), the composition phosphoric-acid-1 uses	0.2529	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 3 4	unlinked unlinked, no technosphere mapping: no mapping (chemical 'phosphate-rock'); add it to lci/mappings.yaml technosphere or to the process's lca/mappings.yaml exchanges
Nitric acid, about 60 wt% (counted by mass of the acid) feed:nitric-acid digestion Ca5(PO4)3F + 10 HNO3 -> 3 H3PO4 + 5 Ca(NO3)2 + HF and CaCO3 + 2 HNO3 -> Ca(NO3)2 + CO2 + H2O, plus the free HNO3 of the NP solution (parameter no3_np); NOx lost from the digestion is not added (outside the balance)	0.5753	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 3 4	Atlas (pinned): Weak nitric acid by dual-pressure ammonia oxidation (1000 t/d HNO3 as 60 wt% acid) (Weak nitric acid 60 wt% to storage, GLO) compatible: grade the input names nitric-acid only; nitric-acid (Weak nitric acid 60 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
Ammonia, liquid (cooling of the crystallisers, then neutralisation and conversion) feed:ammonia conversion (2 NH3 per CNTH), neutralisation of the free HNO3, of the Ca(NO3)2 left (to CaF2 and CaHPO4) and of H3PO4 to NH4H2PO4, plus the NH3 to air; liquid NH3 cools the crystallisers before it is used (EFMA 2000, sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.3)	0.1119	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 3 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
Potassium chloride (muriate of potash), taken as pure KCl feed:potassium-chloride K2O = P2O5 for 15-15-15; potash is about 95 % KCl, so the real mass is about 5 % higher (ASSUMED pure)	0.1344	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 3 4	unlinked unlinked, no technosphere mapping: no mapping (chemical 'potassium-chloride'); add it to lci/mappings.yaml technosphere or to the process's lca/mappings.yaml exchanges
Carbon dioxide from the ammonia plant, for the CNTH conversion feed:carbon-dioxide one CO2 per CNTH converted; compare about 1.0 t CO2 per t P2O5 (EFMA 2000, sections 2.2.4.1 and 4, pp. 13 and 20); the CO2 comes from an ammonia plant's CO2 removal (section 2.2.1, p. 10)	0.08572	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 3 4	unlinked unlinked, no technosphere mapping: no mapping (chemical 'carbon-dioxide'); add it to lci/mappings.yaml technosphere or to the process's lca/mappings.yaml exchanges
Dolomite filler (stands for the unmodelled product components) feed:dolomite ASSUMED, see parameter dol	0.05653	kilogram	assumed	4 5 5 4 4	unlinked unlinked, no technosphere mapping: no mapping (chemical 'dolomite'); add it to lci/mappings.yaml technosphere or to the process's lca/mappings.yaml exchanges
Natural gas (as methane), to heat the granulation and drying air feed:natural-gas midpoint of AMI Linz 23 Nm3/t and infoMil 116 kWh/t (BREF LVIC-AAF Table 7.3, p. 291), converted at 0.7175 kg/Nm3 and 50.01 MJ/kg; pure methane and LHV basis ASSUMED fuel, LHV 50.01 MJ/kg	0.007032	kilogram	given	4 4 5 3 4	Atlas: natural gas, per kg, as methane (Atlas unit proxy) (natural gas, by mass, GLO)
Electricity feed:electricity midpoint of AMI Linz 109 kWh/t and infoMil 50 kWh/t, nitrophosphate route (BREF LVIC-AAF Table 7.3, p. 290); whether the conversion unit is inside these figures is not stated electricity	0.04499	kilowatt hour	given	4 4 5 3 4	market for electricity, medium voltage (electricity, medium voltage, DE, site location) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Steam (pressure not stated; AN evaporation takes saturated steam up to 9 bar) feed:steam midpoint of AMI Linz 170 kg/t and infoMil 310 kg/t (BREF LVIC-AAF Table 7.3, p. 291); the pressure: EFMA 2000, section 2.2.4.2, p. 13. Gross import: steam a nitric acid plant on the site supplies is not netted	0.1358	kilogram	given	4 4 5 3 4	Atlas: steam, saturated, 11 bar(a), per kg, as heat from steam (Atlas unit proxy) (steam, saturated, 11 bar(a), GLO)
Compressed air feed:compressed-air AMI Linz only (BREF LVIC-AAF Table 7.3, p. 291); pressure and dryness not stated	0.0215	normal cubic meter	given	4 4 5 3 4	unlinked 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
Washed quartz sand, used as building material output:sand the rock's quartz, all of it taken as removed after digestion (ASSUMED: the source says most of it), washed and used in building (EFMA 2000, sections 2.2.3 and 4.3, pp. 12 and 21)	0.004792	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 3 4	unlinked unlinked, no technosphere mapping: no mapping (chemical 'silicon-dioxide'); add it to lci/mappings.yaml technosphere or to the process's lca/mappings.yaml exchanges

Elementary flows

Flow	Direction	Compartment	Amount	Unit	Provenance	Pedigree
Carbon dioxide, fossil 349b29d1-3e58-4c66-98b9-9d1a076efd2e	emission	air	0.03099	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 3 4
Water 075e433b-4be4-448e-9510-9a5029c1ce94	emission	air	2.157e-4	cubic meter	calculated	4 5 5 4 4
Ammonia 87883a4e-1e3e-4c9d-90c0-f1bea36f8014	emission	air	1.347e-4	kilogram	given	4 4 5 3 4
Fertiliser dust to air (size not stated) 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	1.89e-4	kilogram	given	4 4 5 3 4
Nitrogen oxides c1b91234-6f24-417b-8309-46111d09c457	emission	air	1.766e-4	kilogram	given	4 4 5 3 4
Fluoride to air, as HF emission:HF unlinked unlinked, no biosphere mapping: emission of HF (literature) has no biosphere3 flow identity and is not in lci/mappings.yaml biosphere	emission	not linked	1.584e-5	kilogram	given	4 4 5 3 4
Total nitrogen to water, as N emission:N-water unlinked unlinked, no biosphere mapping: emission of N-water (literature) has no biosphere3 flow identity and is not in lci/mappings.yaml biosphere	emission	not linked	2.15e-4	kilogram	given	4 4 5 3 4
Phosphate to water, as P2O5 emission:P2O5-water unlinked unlinked, no biosphere mapping: emission of P2O5-water (literature) has no biosphere3 flow identity and is not in lci/mappings.yaml biosphere	emission	not linked	3.395e-5	kilogram	given	4 4 5 3 4
Fluoride to water, as F emission:F-water unlinked unlinked, no biosphere mapping: emission of F-water (literature) has no biosphere3 flow identity and is not in lci/mappings.yaml biosphere	emission	not linked	7.639e-5	kilogram	given	4 4 5 3 4

Where these numbers come from: each exchange names its source above; the dataset is processes/npk-fertilizers-1/lca/datasets/npk-nitrophosphate-odda.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
Calcium carbonate from the CNTH conversion per t of P2O5 in the NPK	– t/t	2.2 to 2.2 t/t EFMA (2000) Best Available Techniques for Pollution Prevention and Control in the European Fertilizer Industry, Booklet No. 7 of 8: Production of NPK fertilizers by the nitrophosphate route, 2000 edition (Fertilizers Europe) (other)	not evaluated
CO2 used by the CNTH conversion per t of P2O5 in the NPK	– t/t	1 to 1 t/t EFMA (2000) Best Available Techniques for Pollution Prevention and Control in the European Fertilizer Industry, Booklet No. 7 of 8: Production of NPK fertilizers by the nitrophosphate route, 2000 edition (Fertilizers Europe) (other)	not evaluated
Phosphate rock per t of P2O5 in the NPK	– t/t	3.5 to 3.5 t/t EFMA (2000) Best Available Techniques for Pollution Prevention and Control in the European Fertilizer Industry, Booklet No. 7 of 8: Production of NPK fertilizers by the nitrophosphate route, 2000 edition (Fertilizers Europe) (other)	not evaluated
Electricity per t of NPK, nitrophosphate route No open source independent of the dataset found (2026-11-05). The only open figures for the nitrophosphate route are the two of LVIC-AAF BREF Table 7.3, p. 290 (AMI Linz 109 kWh/t, infoMil 2001 50 kWh/t), and the dataset takes its value as their midpoint, so a range made of them would only check the transcription. Read: EFMA (2000) BAT booklet No. 7 (no energy figures); UNIDO (1985) comparison of the Odda NPK process (downloads.unido.org, costs only). Not found as open text: Davis and Haglund (1999) SIK report 654. ecoinvent NPK datasets are licensed and not used.	– 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 npk-fertilizers-1:npk-nitrophosphate-odda:product:calcium-carbonate
cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4-olca-jsonld.zip · openLCA JSON-LD (olca-schema) (2) · the whole database
process f0a4da2f-8db9-5585-bb94-caddd1925b29 (processes/f0a4da2f-8db9-5585-bb94-caddd1925b29.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 npk-fertilizers-1:npk-nitrophosphate-odda · 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", "npk-fertilizers-1:npk-nitrophosphate-odda:product:calcium-carbonate"))

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

Calcium carbonate (lime) from the CNTH conversion, to CAN, from NPK 15-15-15 by the nitrophosphate (ODDA) route, with CNTH conversion to ammonium nitrate and lime (dataset npk-nitrophosphate-odda 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-a3c52e4, activity npk-fertilizers-1:npk-nitrophosphate-odda:product:calcium-carbonate. 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}
}