High-density polyethylene, pellets

What it is

Per 1 t of HDPE pellets, gate-to-gate, average of European HDPE units (2011 data of the Plastics Europe eco-profile), slurry and gas-phase plants together. Ethylene, utilities and direct emissions as the source's averages; 1-butene from the branch count; the ethylene the source does not itemise closes the carbon balance.

Reference product

1 kilogram of High-density polyethylene, pellets

Chemical

polyethylene

CAS

9002-88-4

Code

polyethylene-1:hdpe-low-pressure-eu-average:product:polyethylene

Dataset

hdpe-low-pressure-eu-average version 0.1.0 · UUID 4b45114f-bbf6-584a-8ca6-5f91f0d95f19

Activity UUID

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

Database

cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4 (version preview-a3c52e4)

Process

High-density polyethylene by low-pressure polymerisation of ethylene (European average)

Geography

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

Time period

2011 · valid until 2016

Technology

Ziegler or chromium-catalysed low-pressure polymerisation; the source averages slurry (loop and stirred-tank) and gas-phase plants, and the slurry-specific choices (isobutane diluent) are ASSUMED · level current

Boundary

gate-to-gate: feed purification, polymerisation, diluent and monomer recovery, drying, extrusion and pelletising, degassing; power and heat from outside; on-site energy production not in the plant data

Classification

ISIC Rev.4 2013 (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 High-density polyethylene, pellets

As exported: allocated and scaled to the reference product. Provenance: 13 given, 2 calculated, 2 assumed. Pedigree scores (1 best, 5 worst): reliability, completeness, temporal correlation, geographical correlation, further technological correlation.

Elementary flows

Where these numbers come from: each exchange names its source above; the dataset is processes/polyethylene-1/lca/datasets/hdpe-low-pressure-eu-average.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

How to use it

Downloads

• cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4.xlsx · bw2io ExcelImporter workbook (bw2io 0.9 Excel layout) · the whole database
  code polyethylene-1:hdpe-low-pressure-eu-average:product:polyethylene
• cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4-olca-jsonld.zip · openLCA JSON-LD (olca-schema) (2) · the whole database
  process 4b45114f-bbf6-584a-8ca6-5f91f0d95f19 (processes/4b45114f-bbf6-584a-8ca6-5f91f0d95f19.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 polyethylene-1:hdpe-low-pressure-eu-average:product:polyethylene
• 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", "polyethylene-1:hdpe-low-pressure-eu-average:product:polyethylene"))

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

High-density polyethylene, pellets, from High-density polyethylene by low-pressure polymerisation of ethylene (European average) (dataset hdpe-low-pressure-eu-average 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-a3c52e4, activity polyethylene-1:hdpe-low-pressure-eu-average:product:polyethylene. 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)

@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}
}

@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}
}