Solid sodium cyanide (98 wt%) to packing

Activity Solid sodium cyanide from Andrussow HCN (6.25 t/h, 50 kt/a), GLO: the inventory of 1 kilogram of its reference product, attributional, cut-off.

Calculation maturity: not assessed Design maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewedsodium-cyanide-1:solid-sodium-cyanide-from-andrussow-hcn-6.25-t-h-nacn:product:NACNPreliminaryReport 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 Solid sodium cyanide from Andrussow HCN (6.25 t/h NaCN), case design, derived from the flowsheet by cheme assess lca.

Reference product: 1 kilogram of Solid sodium cyanide (98 wt%) to packing (1.01325 bar(a), 40 degC, 98 % NACN_S (mass))
Chemical: sodium-cyanide
CAS: 143-33-9
Code: sodium-cyanide-1:solid-sodium-cyanide-from-andrussow-hcn-6.25-t-h-nacn:product:NACN
Dataset: solid-sodium-cyanide-from-andrussow-hcn-6.25-t-h-nacn version 0.1.0 · UUID c9b4056c-9c59-54c8-9ecc-e9fd63749206
Activity UUID: not available (the library assigns none; use the code)
Database: cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348 (version preview-c3ab348)
Process: Solid sodium cyanide from Andrussow HCN (6.25 t/h, 50 kt/a)
Geography: GLO · background inputs with a site rule link at the user's site location (default DE)
Time period: 2026 · valid until 2031
Technology: air-operated Andrussow converter on Pt/Rh gauze, waste heat boiler, ammonium phosphate ammonia recovery and recycle, HCN absorption in chilled water and rectification, neutralisation with 50 wt% NaOH, vacuum evaporative crystallisation, steam drying, tail gas boiler; 6.25 t/h solid NaCN · level current
Boundary: gate-to-gate foreground of the plant
Production volume: 50,000,000 kg/a (product:NACN 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, 100 % of the dataset to this product (rule deviation, from study)
Shares 1/0 instead of the library's exergy allocation of exported steam, because the chemical exergy of NaCN is not sourced yet (DESIGN.md D-012); the steam then carries no burden, which overstates the product's burdens.
Rights: CC-BY-4.0: the ChemE-as-Code process library's own concept design (LICENSE-DATA)

Exchanges per 1 kilogram of Solid sodium cyanide (98 wt%) to packing

As exported: allocated and scaled to the reference product. Provenance: 14 assumed, 6 calculated. Pedigree scores (1 best, 5 worst): reliability, completeness, temporal correlation, geographical correlation, further technological correlation.

Preliminary6 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
Natural gas (as methane) from the site grid feed:NG Natural gas (S1, modelled as methane, 400 kPa(a)): connect to a market for natural gas, high pressure, of the site's country (production, processing and transport to the consumer). Used as feedstock (its carbon leaves in the HCN, the tail gas CO/CO2 and so in the stack CO2), not burned as fuel. From stream S1	0.5006	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	Atlas: natural gas, per kg, as methane (Atlas unit proxy) (natural gas, by mass, GLO)
Liquid ammonia from the ammonia plant (ammonia-1) feed:NH3F Anhydrous liquid ammonia (S2, 1100 kPa(a)): connect to the library process ammonia-1 (natural-gas reforming and Haber-Bosch synthesis) once its dataset is published in the Atlas, or else to a market for ammonia, anhydrous, liquid. The link to ammonia-1 is to be pinned explicitly (dataset:), not left to the slug. From stream S2	0.4374	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	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 no chemical 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
Caustic soda 50 wt% from the chlor-alkali plant (chlor-alkali-1) feed:NAOHF Caustic soda 50 wt% (S20, flow incl. its water; 0.81 kg NaOH per kg product): connect to the library process chlor-alkali-1 (membrane cell caustic) once its dataset is published, with its chlorine/hydrogen co-product allocation, or else to a market for sodium hydroxide, without water, in 50 % solution state (per kg NaOH 100 %: the inventory counts the solution, so convert by the 0.5 mass fraction when linking). From stream S20	1.62	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	Atlas (pinned): Chlor-alkali by membrane-cell electrolysis (100 kt/a Cl2, 50 wt-% caustic soda, hydrogen) (Sodium hydroxide, Caustic soda 50 wt-% to storage, GLO) compatible: grade the input names no chemical only; sodium-hydroxide (Sodium hydroxide, Caustic soda 50 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
Electric power feed:POWER Electricity for the process air blower K-101 (Q1) and the lumped pumps, vacuum pumps, centrifuge, dryer drive, briquetting press and boiler fan (Q2, ASSUMED 400 kW): connect to a market for electricity, medium voltage, of the site's country. electricity From streams Q1, Q2	0.1644	kilowatt hour	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	market for electricity, medium voltage (electricity, medium voltage, DE, site location) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Cyanide- and ammonia-bearing process water to cyanide destruction and wastewater treatment product:WW Process water (S10 ammonia recovery water 3.0 t/h with 0.11 wt% NH3; S16 absorber purge 3.6 t/h with about 470 ppm(wt) HCN and 930 ppm(wt) NH3; S26 vapour condensate 7.3 t/h): connect to treatment of cyanide-bearing industrial wastewater (oxidative cyanide destruction, e.g. with hydrogen peroxide or hypochlorite, then biological treatment with nitrogen removal) per m3 with its cyanide and ammonia load. Residual cyanide and ammonia discharges are emissions of that treatment, not of this plant. From streams S10, S16, S26	2.217	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	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)
Cooling water return product:CW Heat rejected to the site cooling water system (Q10-Q14, 298/308 K): connect to cooling water supply / heat rejection in an evaporative cooling tower (pumping and fan power, make-up water, blowdown, treatment chemicals) per kWh of heat removed, e.g. the library process utility-cooling-tower. cold, 25 degC From streams Q10, Q11, Q12, Q13, Q14	2.836	kilowatt hour	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	Atlas (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)
Chilled water return (from the site refrigeration plant) product:CHW Heat removed by chilled water at 275/283 K (Q15 HCN absorber, Q16 lean water chiller): connect to chilled water production in a compression chiller (electricity at its COP, refrigerant losses, heat rejection to cooling water) per kWh of cold, e.g. the library process utility-chiller. cold, chilled water, 2 degC From streams Q15, Q16	0.7656	kilowatt hour	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	unlinked unlinked, no technosphere mapping: no mapping (chemical 'chilled-water'); add it to lci/mappings.yaml technosphere or to the process's lca/mappings.yaml exchanges
Pt/Rh 90/10 gauze pack of the converter (R-101) consumable:pt-rh-gauze ASSUMED without an open source: about 50 kg of Pt/Rh 90/10 gauze in the converters (roughly 11 m2 of gauze area from the specific output of about 300 kg HCN per h and m2 of US 6,596,251 B2 in air operation, several layers), renewed twice a year (the patents describe the selectivity falling until the gauze is renewed). The irrecoverable platinum loss per kg HCN, which drives this exchange in reality, is not known in this run (open input). WHEN MAPPED (review 2026-10-28-pfd-lci-review#5): model the net, irrecoverable Pt/Rh loss per kg HCN (or the charge with the refined metal returned), not the primary production of the whole charge every campaign; until then this stays a gap.	2e-6	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	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
Boiler feed water (demineralised, deaerated) leaving as the exported MP steam consumable:bfw-export ASSUMED: 27.24 t/h, the water of the 17.80 MW steam export (Q8 + Q9) at 2352 kJ/kg, 8000 h/a; the export is an upper bound (review 2026-10-28-pfd-lci-review#1).	4.358	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	market for water, deionised (water, deionised, RoW) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Boiler feed water make-up for blowdown and condensate losses (E-101, B-301) consumable:bfw-makeup ASSUMED: blowdown 3 % of the 46.9 t/h raised (1.41 t/h) and 10 % loss of the 19.7 t/h of condensate of the plant's own LP steam use (1.97 t/h), 3.38 t/h, 8000 h/a.	0.54	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	market for water, deionised (water, deionised, RoW) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Disposal: Boiler feed water make-up for blowdown and condensate losses (E-101, B-301) (boiler blowdown and condensate drains to the site wastewater treatment) disposal:consumable.bfw-makeup ASSUMED: all of it to drains (part of the condensate loss evaporates in reality)	0.54	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	Atlas: wastewater to treatment, per kg (Atlas unit proxy) (wastewater, by mass, GLO)
Phosphoric acid make-up of the ammonium phosphate ammonia recovery loop (C-101) consumable:phosphate-makeup ASSUMED placeholder without an open source (D-006 open input): 20 t/a H3PO4 (about 0.4 g per kg product) to replace the phosphate lost with the ammonia recovery water S10 and by degradation of the loop. Recorded so that the gap shows; the amount is to be sourced in the next stage.	4e-4	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	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
Disposal: Phosphoric acid make-up of the ammonium phosphate ammonia recovery loop (C-101) (with the ammonia recovery water S10 to cyanide destruction and wastewater treatment) disposal:consumable.phosphate-makeup ASSUMED: the phosphate lost from the loop leaves with the process water	4e-4	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	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
Acid stabiliser of the HCN refining against polymerisation (C-202) consumable:hcn-stabiliser ASSUMED placeholder without an open source (D-007 open input): about 0.1 wt% acid on the liquid HCN (3.38 t/h), 27 t/a as H2SO4 (about 0.5 g per kg product). The acid goes with the HCN to R-401, where the caustic neutralises it; the sodium sulfate stays in the product (not modelled in the flowsheet: 0.05 % of the product mass), so no disposal exchange.	5.4e-4	kilogram	assumed	4 4 1 3 3	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

Flow	Direction	Compartment	Amount	Unit	Provenance	Pedigree
Methane, fossil 0795345f-c7ae-410c-ad25-1845784c75f5 From stream S31	emission	air	0	kilogram	calculated	3 4 1 3 3
Carbon monoxide, fossil ba2f3f82-c93a-47a5-822a-37ec97495275 From stream S31	emission	air	0	kilogram	calculated	3 4 1 3 3
Carbon dioxide, fossil 349b29d1-3e58-4c66-98b9-9d1a076efd2e From stream S31	emission	air	0.4927	kilogram	calculated	3 4 1 3 3
Hydrogen no biosphere3 UUID: linked by name and compartment From stream S31	emission	air	0	kilogram	calculated	3 4 1 3 3
HCN to the environment emission:HCN unlinked unlinked, no biosphere mapping: emission of HCN (fossil) has no biosphere3 flow identity and is not in lci/mappings.yaml biosphere From stream S31	emission	not linked	0	kilogram	calculated	3 4 1 3 3
Ammonia 87883a4e-1e3e-4c9d-90c0-f1bea36f8014 From stream S31	emission	air	0	kilogram	calculated	3 4 1 3 3

The streams are the plant's own flows: an amount here is allocated and per 1 kilogram of Solid sodium cyanide (98 wt%) to packing, 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/sodium-cyanide-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 2.5

TeR 3 · GeR 3 · TiR 1 · P 3 · 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: not-assessable
lci-element-balance: not-assessable
lci-mass-balance: closed

element balance not assessable: no composition for consumable:pt-rh-gauze (no composition), disposal:consumable.pt-rh-gauze (no composition), consumable:bfw-export (no composition), disposal:consumable.bfw-export (no composition), consumable:bfw-makeup (no composition), disposal:consumable.bfw-makeup (no composition), consumable:phosphate-makeup (no composition), disposal:consumable.phosphate-makeup (no composition), consumable:hcn-stabiliser (no composition)
carbon balance not assessable: no composition for consumable:pt-rh-gauze (no composition), disposal:consumable.pt-rh-gauze (no composition), consumable:bfw-export (no composition), disposal:consumable.bfw-export (no composition), consumable:bfw-makeup (no composition), disposal:consumable.bfw-makeup (no composition), consumable:phosphate-makeup (no composition), disposal:consumable.phosphate-makeup (no composition), consumable:hcn-stabiliser (no composition)

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 sodium-cyanide-1:solid-sodium-cyanide-from-andrussow-hcn-6.25-t-h-nacn:product:NACN
cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348-olca-jsonld.zip · openLCA JSON-LD (olca-schema) (2) · the whole database
process c9b4056c-9c59-54c8-9ecc-e9fd63749206 (processes/c9b4056c-9c59-54c8-9ecc-e9fd63749206.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 sodium-cyanide-1:solid-sodium-cyanide-from-andrussow-hcn-6.25-t-h-nacn · 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", "sodium-cyanide-1:solid-sodium-cyanide-from-andrussow-hcn-6.25-t-h-nacn:product:NACN"))

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

Solid sodium cyanide (98 wt%) to packing, from Solid sodium cyanide from Andrussow HCN (6.25 t/h, 50 kt/a) (dataset solid-sodium-cyanide-from-andrussow-hcn-6.25-t-h-nacn 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-c3ab348, activity sodium-cyanide-1:solid-sodium-cyanide-from-andrussow-hcn-6.25-t-h-nacn:product:NACN. 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}
}