Sulfuric acid 98.5 wt% to storage

Activity Sulfuric acid from sulfur burning, double contact / double absorption (1000 t/d, 98.5 wt%), GLO: the inventory of 1 kilogram of its reference product, attributional, cut-off.

Calculation maturity: not assessed Design maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewedsulfuric-acid-1:sulfuric-acid-sulfur-burning-double-contact-double-absorption-1000-t-d-h2so4:product:ACIDReport 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 Sulfuric acid, sulfur burning, double contact / double absorption (1000 t/d H2SO4), case design, derived from the flowsheet by cheme assess lca.

Reference product
1 kilogram of Sulfuric acid 98.5 wt% to storage (liquid, 3 bar(a), 40 degC, 92.344 % H2SO4 (mole))
Chemical
sulfuric-acid
CAS
7664-93-9
Code
sulfuric-acid-1:sulfuric-acid-sulfur-burning-double-contact-double-absorption-1000-t-d-h2so4:product:ACID
Dataset
sulfuric-acid-sulfur-burning-double-contact-double-absorption-1000-t-d-h2so4 version 0.1.0 · UUID 640548b9-a0e5-5632-a872-cbbcc5ddb596
Activity UUID
not available (the library assigns none; use the code)
Database
cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348 (version preview-c3ab348)
Process
Sulfuric acid from sulfur burning, double contact / double absorption (1000 t/d, 98.5 wt%)
Geography
GLO · background inputs with a site rule link at the user's site location (default DE)
Time period
2026 · valid until 2031
Technology
sulfur burning, 3+1 double contact / double absorption, V2O5 catalyst, 1000 t/d H2SO4, HP steam export · level current
Boundary
gate-to-gate foreground of the plant
Production volume
338,408,800 kg/a (product:ACID 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)
The library hierarchy allocates exported steam by energy or exergy (docs/system-model.md). Neither applies here: the acid has no energy content, so energy allocation would put every burden on the steam, and no property package covers aqueous sulfuric acid (D-006), so the acid's exergy cannot be calculated; the steam is counted in kWh, so the WBCSD price ratio does not apply either. Shares 1/0 are the conservative choice for the acid until the exergy of both products is available (DESIGN.md D-014).
Rights
CC-BY-4.0: the ChemE-as-Code process library's own concept design (LICENSE-DATA)

Exchanges per 1 kilogram of Sulfuric acid 98.5 wt% to storage

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

InputAmountUnitProvenancePedigreeLinked to
Molten sulfur
feed:SULFUR
flowsheet stream S4 (scripts/balance.py, D-003, D-006)
From stream S4
0.323kilogramassumed4 4 1 3 3market for sulfur (sulfur, GLO) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Process (dilution) water
feed:PW
flowsheet stream S31 (D-007)
From stream S31
0.1657kilogramassumed4 4 1 3 3market for water, deionised (water, deionised, RoW) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Electric power
feed:POWER
flowsheet energy streams Q1 (main blower) and Q2 (acid pump), D-010
electricity
From streams Q1, Q2
0.05454kilowatt hourassumed4 4 1 3 3market for electricity, medium voltage (electricity, medium voltage, DE, site location) in your background (default ecoinvent-3.11-cutoff)
Cooling water return
product:CW
flowsheet energy streams Q7 (acid cooler) and Q8 (product cooler), D-007
cold, 25 degC
From streams Q7, Q8
0.4914kilowatt hourassumed4 4 1 3 3Atlas (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)

Elementary flows

FlowDirectionCompartmentAmountUnitProvenancePedigree
Sulfur dioxide
78c3efe4-421c-4d30-82e4-b97ac5124993
From stream S19
emissionair / non-urban air or from high stacks0.001936kilogramassumed4 4 1 3 3
Sulfur trioxide
3268d8df-59cc-4740-a89f-dee8355ad7c3
From stream S19
emissionair3.867e-5kilogramassumed4 4 1 3 3

The streams are the plant's own flows: an amount here is allocated and per 1 kilogram of Sulfuric acid 98.5 wt% to storage, 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/sulfuric-acid-1/lca/dataset.yaml in library version c3ab348.

Used by

How good it is

Review
Not reviewed: no LCI review record yet
Data quality
DQR 2.33 · PEF-style DQR 2.75
TeR 3 · GeR 3 · TiR 1 · P 4 · 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: closed
  • lci-element-balance: closed
  • lci-mass-balance: closed
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 sulfuric-acid-1:sulfuric-acid-sulfur-burning-double-contact-double-absorption-1000-t-d-h2so4:product:ACID
  • cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348-olca-jsonld.zip · openLCA JSON-LD (olca-schema) (2) · the whole database
    process 640548b9-a0e5-5632-a872-cbbcc5ddb596 (processes/640548b9-a0e5-5632-a872-cbbcc5ddb596.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 sulfuric-acid-1:sulfuric-acid-sulfur-burning-double-contact-double-absorption-1000-t-d-h2so4 · 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", "sulfuric-acid-1:sulfuric-acid-sulfur-burning-double-contact-double-absorption-1000-t-d-h2so4:product:ACID"))

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

Sulfuric acid 98.5 wt% to storage, from Sulfuric acid from sulfur burning, double contact / double absorption (1000 t/d, 98.5 wt%) (dataset sulfuric-acid-sulfur-burning-double-contact-double-absorption-1000-t-d-h2so4 0.1.0), ChemE-as-Code Process Atlas LCI database preview-c3ab348, activity sulfuric-acid-1:sulfuric-acid-sulfur-burning-double-contact-double-absorption-1000-t-d-h2so4:product:ACID. 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}
}