Phthalimide, flakes, 99.6 to 99.8 wt% (counted as phthalimide)

Activity Phthalimide by continuous reaction of molten phthalic anhydride with ammonia, GLO: the inventory of 1 kilogram of its reference product, attributional, cut-off.

Calculation maturity: not assessed Design maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewedphthalimide-1:phthalimide-pa-ammonia-continuous:product:phthalimidePreliminaryReport 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 estimate per 1 t of phthalimide, gate-to-gate. Molten phthalic anhydride and gaseous ammonia in about the stoichiometric ratio, mixed in an ejector and reacted in a heated tube at about 265 degC; the melt is flaked and the phthalimide in the off-gas is recovered by absorption in water. Feeds from stoichiometry with a patent's yield and ammonia ratio; electricity and heat from core's Tier 0 defaults.

Reference product: 1 kilogram of Phthalimide, flakes, 99.6 to 99.8 wt% (counted as phthalimide)
Chemical: phthalimide
CAS: 85-41-6
Code: phthalimide-1:phthalimide-pa-ammonia-continuous:product:phthalimide
Dataset: phthalimide-pa-ammonia-continuous version 0.1.0 · UUID b1b2b9de-40f5-52a7-b34a-05b8a8947ba3
Activity UUID: not available (the library assigns none; use the code)
Database: cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4 (version preview-a3c52e4)
Process: Phthalimide by continuous reaction of molten phthalic anhydride with ammonia
Geography: GLO · background inputs with a site rule link at the user's site location (default DE)
Time period: 1979 · valid until 1988
Technology: continuous ejector mixing and tube reaction of molten phthalic anhydride with ammonia (1 to 1.02 mol per mol), 240 to 280 degC, 2 to 10 bar; the batch melt routes, the countercurrent column, the urea route and o-xylene ammoxidation are not modelled · level current
Boundary: gate-to-gate: phthalic anhydride melt and ammonia from storage, mixing and tube reaction, melt separation and flaking, off-gas absorption and phthalimide recovery; power and heat from outside; the effluent to treatment
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, 100 % of the dataset to this product (rule single-output, from default)
one product: nothing to allocate
Rights: CC-BY-4.0

Exchanges per 1 kilogram of Phthalimide, flakes, 99.6 to 99.8 wt% (counted as phthalimide)

As exported: allocated and scaled to the reference product. Provenance: 5 calculated, 2 assumed. Pedigree scores (1 best, 5 worst): reliability, completeness, temporal correlation, geographical correlation, further technological correlation.

Preliminary3 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
Phthalic anhydride, molten feed:phthalic-anhydride stoichiometry C8H4O3 + NH3 -> C8H5NO2 + H2O with the patent's yield (US 4,419,519, Examples 1 and 2)	1.011	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 4 4	unlinked unlinked, no technosphere mapping: no mapping (chemical 'phthalic-anhydride'); add it to lci/mappings.yaml technosphere or to the process's lca/mappings.yaml exchanges
Ammonia, vaporised feed:ammonia stoichiometry with the patent's yield and ammonia ratio (US 4,419,519, Examples 1 and 2)	0.1164	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 4 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
Electricity feed:electricity cheme tier-defaults 1.0.0: electricity [ASSUMED]: 1.2 MJ (0.333 kWh) per kg of product, attributed to the Gendorf (2000) site average that the ecoinvent v2-era chemicals proxies used. ASSUMED, not read in either source: Hischier et al. 2005 (p. 61) names the Gendorf (2000) average as the default but prints no value, and the number could not be confirmed in an open copy of Althaus et al. 2007 (ecoinvent report No. 8). Dated: newer ecoinvent proxies rest on later Gendorf reports, so this value may be low for a present-day process electricity	0.3333	kilowatt hour	assumed	4 5 5 4 5	market for electricity, medium voltage (electricity, medium voltage, DE, site location) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Heat from fossil fuel (a heat flow, not a fuel input) feed:heat cheme tier-defaults 1.0.0: heat [ASSUMED]: 2.0 MJ (0.556 kWh) of heat per kg of product, generated from fossil fuel, attributed to the Gendorf (2000) site average that the ecoinvent v2-era chemicals proxies used. ASSUMED, not read in either source; dated, and possibly low against newer ecoinvent proxies heat	0.5556	kilowatt hour	assumed	4 5 5 4 5	Atlas: heat from natural gas, industrial furnace, per kWh (Atlas unit proxy) (heat from natural gas, by energy, GLO)
Reaction water, condensed in the off-gas absorber, to wastewater treatment output:wastewater stoichiometry: 1 mol of water per mol of phthalimide. The patent absorbs the off-gas (steam, phthalimide vapour, ammonia, anhydride) in water (US 4,419,519, Example 1); that the water then goes to treatment is ASSUMED. The absorption water itself is a TODO (system_boundary)	0.1224	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 4 4	Atlas (plant): wastewater to treatment, per kg (Atlas unit proxy) (wastewater, by mass, GLO) compatible: grade the input names wastewater only; wastewater (Wastewater treated) is taken; unit kilogram; system model cutoff (one database); allocation mass (single-output); boundary plant gate of a site utility: no utility market yet (docs/markets.md)
Excess ammonia in the absorber effluent, to wastewater treatment output:ammonia-effluent closes the nitrogen balance; a dissolved load, not water, so it is not linked to the shared wastewater entry (which counts the water only) and stays a reported gap; that all excess ammonia is absorbed and none is vented is ASSUMED (the patent gives 0.2 to 0.4 wt% ammonia in the off-gas leaving the receiver, Examples 1 and 2, but not the absorber vent)	6.973e-4	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 4 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
Unconverted phthalic anhydride (as phthalic acid in the absorber effluent), to wastewater treatment output:phthalic-anhydride-effluent closes the carbon balance; the fate is ASSUMED. A dissolved load, not water, so it is not linked to the shared wastewater entry (which counts the water only) and stays a reported gap. The yield counts the product as obtained, so the anhydride left unconverted is really about 7 kg/t: about 3 kg/t of it stays in the product as the 0.2 to 0.4 wt% impurity (US 4,419,519, Examples 1 and 2), and the rest, about 4.1 kg/t, matches this amount. The dataset counts the product as pure phthalimide instead. Counted as the anhydride, its hydrolysis water is not modelled	0.004043	kilogram	calculated	4 4 5 4 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

Elementary flows

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

Where these numbers come from: each exchange names its source above; the dataset is processes/phthalimide-1/lca/datasets/phthalimide-pa-ammonia-continuous.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
Ammonia consumption per t of phthalimide No open source independent of the dataset gives an ammonia consumption for phthalimide (2026-11-05). The only figures found are the dataset's own source, US 4,419,519 Examples 1 and 2 (82.5/709 and 46/395, 0.1164 to 0.1165 t/t at 1.000 and 1.003 mol NH3 per mol anhydride), so they are not bound here. US 4,001,273 (Example 1, a countercurrent column at 1 mol NH3 per mol anhydride) has a single run whose phthalimide leaves partly as flakes and partly in a washed off-gas sent on to anthranilic acid, so its ammonia per t depends on how the off-gas share is counted (about 0.12 to 0.15 t/t); not bound. The Chemcess summary says excess ammonia for the co-current tube, without a figure. Ullmann's chapter (later edition doi:10.1002/14356007.a20_181.pub3; Chemcess cites the earlier .pub2) is licensed and was not read.	– t/t	not available	not evaluated
Phthalic anhydride consumption per t of phthalimide	– t/t	1.027 to 1.027 t/t Chemcess (n.d.) Phthalimide: properties, reactions, production and uses, section 3.1. Primary source as Chemcess gives it: Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Phthalic Acid and Derivatives, doi:10.1002/14356007.a20_181.pub2 (via Chemcess, not read) (other)	not evaluated
Electricity per t of phthalimide No open source with an electricity figure for phthalimide found (2026-11-05). Read: US 4,419,519 and US 4,001,273 (full text, no utility data), the Chemcess summary (no energy figures). Searched the web for phthalimide energy or steam per tonne: only phthalic anhydride figures came up. Ullmann's chapter (later edition doi:10.1002/14356007.a20_181.pub3; Chemcess cites the earlier .pub2) is licensed and was not read. The dataset's value is core's Tier 0 default, ASSUMED.	– kWh/t	not available	not evaluated
Heat per t of phthalimide No open source with a heat or steam figure for phthalimide found (2026-11-05); same search as the electricity KPI. The patents only state that the reaction is exothermic and that the feeds and the tube are heated. The dataset's value is core's Tier 0 default, ASSUMED.	– 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 phthalimide-1:phthalimide-pa-ammonia-continuous:product:phthalimide
cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4-olca-jsonld.zip · openLCA JSON-LD (olca-schema) (2) · the whole database
process b1b2b9de-40f5-52a7-b34a-05b8a8947ba3 (processes/b1b2b9de-40f5-52a7-b34a-05b8a8947ba3.json)
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 phthalimide-1:phthalimide-pa-ammonia-continuous:product:phthalimide
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", "phthalimide-1:phthalimide-pa-ammonia-continuous:product:phthalimide"))

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

Phthalimide, flakes, 99.6 to 99.8 wt% (counted as phthalimide), from Phthalimide by continuous reaction of molten phthalic anhydride with ammonia (dataset phthalimide-pa-ammonia-continuous 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-a3c52e4, activity phthalimide-1:phthalimide-pa-ammonia-continuous:product:phthalimide. 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}
}