Toluene, by-product

Activity Styrene by adiabatic catalytic dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene, RER: the inventory of 1 kilogram of its reference product, attributional, cut-off.

Calculation maturity: not assessed Design maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewedstyrene-1:styrene-eb-dehydrogenation:product:toluenePreliminaryReport 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

Per 1 t of styrene monomer, gate-to-gate, EU plants of the LVOC BREF data collection. Toluene and benzene are co-products. Off-gas hydrogen, methane and ethylene burn in the steam superheater.

Reference product: 1 kilogram of Toluene, by-product
Chemical: toluene
CAS: 108-88-3
Code: styrene-1:styrene-eb-dehydrogenation:product:toluene
Dataset: styrene-eb-dehydrogenation version 0.1.0 · UUID d0f9fac1-d910-5bbc-b30a-ecd2d44c22ac
Activity UUID: not available (the library assigns none; use the code)
Database: cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348 (version preview-c3ab348)
Process: Styrene by adiabatic catalytic dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene
Geography: RER · background inputs with a site rule link at the user's site location (default DE)
Time period: 2007 · valid until 2016
Technology: adiabatic dehydrogenation over iron oxide catalyst under vacuum, vacuum distillation; the PO/SM route is not modelled · level current
Boundary: gate-to-gate: reactor section with steam superheater, off-gas recovery, fractionation; ethylbenzene, steam and power from outside
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, 2.3 % of the dataset to this product (rule deviation, from dataset)
No sourced prices, so the WBCSD price ratio of styrene and toluene cannot be computed (benzene, 0.97 % of the output, is below the 1 % line and does not enter it). Mass is the preliminary choice.
Rights: CC-BY-4.0

Exchanges per 1 kilogram of Toluene, by-product

As exported: allocated and scaled to the reference product. Provenance: 12 given, 3 assumed, 2 calculated. Pedigree scores (1 best, 5 worst): reliability, completeness, temporal correlation, geographical correlation, further technological correlation.

Preliminary5 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
Ethylbenzene feed:ethylbenzene EU JRC (2017) LVOC BREF, EUR 28882 EN, doi:10.2760/77304, 5.3.4.1, p. 281	1.035	kilogram	given	3 4 4 3 3	Atlas (pinned): Ethylbenzene by liquid-phase zeolite alkylation of benzene with ethylene (Ethylbenzene, RER) compatible: grade the input names ethylbenzene only; ethylbenzene (Ethylbenzene) is taken; unit kilogram; system model cutoff (one database); allocation mass (single-output); boundary plant gate (pinned): no distribution or losses; the consumer's dataset counts its delivery
Natural gas (as methane) to the steam superheater feed:natural-gas fuel range less the LHV of the off-gas hydrogen (reading ASSUMED, see parameter fuel); the heat of the off-gas methane and ethylene is not credited fuel, LHV 50.01 MJ/kg	0.09514	kilogram	assumed	4 4 4 4 4	Atlas: natural gas, per kg, as methane (Atlas unit proxy) (natural gas, by mass, GLO)
Electricity feed:electricity EU JRC (2017) LVOC BREF, EUR 28882 EN, doi:10.2760/77304, 5.3.5, p. 283 electricity	0.1064	kilowatt hour	given	3 4 4 3 3	market for electricity, medium voltage (electricity, medium voltage, DE, site location) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Steam, as heat delivered feed:steam EU JRC (2017) LVOC BREF, EUR 28882 EN, doi:10.2760/77304, 5.3.5, p. 283; gross, heat recovery not credited	2.298	kilowatt hour	given	3 4 4 3 3	Atlas: heat from steam, per kWh (Atlas unit proxy) (heat from steam, by energy, GLO)
Iron oxide dehydrogenation catalyst input:catalyst charge over lifetime and capacity; inside the bound of 0.45 kg/t spent (LVOC BREF 5.3.6.2, p. 285); mass outside the element balance	2.257e-4	kilogram	calculated	3 4 4 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
Polymerisation inhibitor input:inhibitor EU JRC (2017) LVOC BREF, EUR 28882 EN, doi:10.2760/77304, Table 5.12, p. 285; mass outside the element balance	7.256e-5	kilogram	given	3 4 4 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
Spent catalyst output:spent-catalyst equal to the make-up; mass outside the element balance	2.257e-4	kilogram	calculated	3 4 4 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
Tar (fuel in three of four plants) output:tar EU JRC (2017) LVOC BREF, EUR 28882 EN, doi:10.2760/77304, Table 5.11, p. 285	0.009336	kilogram	given	3 4 4 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
Effluent to wastewater treatment output:wastewater EU JRC (2017) LVOC BREF, EUR 28882 EN, doi:10.2760/77304, 5.3.3.2, p. 277	2.08	kilogram	given	3 4 4 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)

Elementary flows

Flow	Direction	Compartment	Amount	Unit	Provenance	Pedigree
Carbon dioxide, fossil 349b29d1-3e58-4c66-98b9-9d1a076efd2e	emission	air	0.2828	kilogram	assumed	4 4 4 4 4
Water 075e433b-4be4-448e-9510-9a5029c1ce94	emission	air	3.916e-4	cubic meter	assumed	4 4 4 4 4
Nitrogen oxides c1b91234-6f24-417b-8309-46111d09c457	emission	air	5.902e-5	kilogram	given	3 4 4 3 3
Sulfur dioxide fd7aa71c-508c-480d-81a6-8052aad92646	emission	air	2.322e-6	kilogram	given	3 4 4 3 3
Carbon monoxide, fossil ba2f3f82-c93a-47a5-822a-37ec97495275	emission	air	5.805e-6	kilogram	given	3 4 4 3 3
Methane, fossil 0795345f-c7ae-410c-ad25-1845784c75f5	emission	air	1.741e-6	kilogram	given	3 4 4 3 3
Particulates from the steam superheater 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	1.209e-6	kilogram	given	3 4 4 3 3
NMVOC, non-methane volatile organic compounds d3260d0e-8203-4cbb-a45a-6a13131a5108	emission	air	1.04e-5	kilogram	given	3 4 4 3 3

Where these numbers come from: each exchange names its source above; the dataset is processes/styrene-1/lca/datasets/styrene-eb-dehydrogenation.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: 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
Ethylbenzene consumption per t of styrene	– kg/t	1,040 to 1,100 kg/t Falcke, H. et al. (2017) Best Available Techniques (BAT) Reference Document for the Production of Large Volume Organic Chemicals. JRC Science for Policy Report EUR 28882 EN, doi:10.2760/77304 (bref)	not evaluated
Toluene by-product per t of styrene	– kg/t	16 to 94 kg/t Falcke, H. et al. (2017) Best Available Techniques (BAT) Reference Document for the Production of Large Volume Organic Chemicals. JRC Science for Policy Report EUR 28882 EN, doi:10.2760/77304 (bref)	not evaluated

How to use it

Downloads

cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348.xlsx · bw2io ExcelImporter workbook (bw2io 0.9 Excel layout) · the whole database
code styrene-1:styrene-eb-dehydrogenation:product:toluene
cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348-olca-jsonld.zip · openLCA JSON-LD (olca-schema) (2) · the whole database
process d0f9fac1-d910-5bbc-b30a-ecd2d44c22ac (processes/d0f9fac1-d910-5bbc-b30a-ecd2d44c22ac.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 styrene-1:styrene-eb-dehydrogenation · 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", "styrene-1:styrene-eb-dehydrogenation:product:toluene"))

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

Toluene, by-product, from Styrene by adiabatic catalytic dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene (dataset styrene-eb-dehydrogenation 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-c3ab348, activity styrene-1:styrene-eb-dehydrogenation:product:toluene. 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}
}