carbon black production, UPR, ecoinvent 3.6, Undefined
Location: GLO - Global
This dataset represents the production of 1 kg of solid carbon black. Carbon black is a very fine powder which as a high surface area and is mainly composed of carbon. About 90% of the carbon black produced is used by the rubber industry as a reinforcing filler in tires, tubes, conveyor belts, cables, rubber profiles, and other mechanical rubber goods. Carbon black is also used as a pigment for the manufacture of printing inks, coloring plastics, fibers, lacquers, coatings, and paper (Voll and Kleinschmit 2010). The furnace black process is currently the most important production process for carbon black and is the one that is modeled in this dataset.
This dataset is based on several literature sources, as well as estimations based on industrial data (Gendorf 2016).
References:
Gendorf (2016) Umwelterklärung 2015, Werk Gendorf Industriepark, www.gendorf.de.
Althaus H.-J., Chudacoff M., Hischier R., Jungbluth N., Osses M. and Primas A. (2007) Life Cycle Inventories of Chemicals. ecoinvent report No. 8, v2.0. EMPA Dübendorf, Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories, Dübendorf, CH.
Voll, M. and Kleinschmit, P. 2010. Carbon, 6. Carbon Black. Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry.
Undefined unit processes (UPRs) are the unlinked, multi-product activity datasets that form the basis for all of the system models available in the ecoinvent database. This is the way the datasets are obtained and entered into the database by the data providers. These activity datasets are useful for investigating the environmental impacts of a specific activity (gate-to-gate), without regard to its upstream or downstream impacts.
The most important production process used nowadays is the oil-furnace process – other processes like e.g. thermal or acetylene carbon black processes are only of minor interests and therefore not further examined within this study here. The oil-furnace process is, according to Voll and Kleinschmit (2010) and Dannenberg and Paquin (2000) a partial combustion process of liquid aromatic residual hydrocarbons.
The principle is to atomize the feedstock into the reactor, where it is decomposed into carbon black and hydrogen due to the fact that the oxygen available is not sufficient for a combustion of all the input. The reactor temperature is in the order of 1200 to 1900 °C, achieved through the combustion of natural gas and of the unreacted feedstock. After the decomposition, a fast quenching has to be done to avoid the loss by reaction of carbon black with carbon dioxide and water. The further processing consists mainly of drying and separation from other substances like tail gases, through a filter system.
This dataset describes the production of carbon black with the oil-furnace process, using natural gas as further energy input. The inventory is based on literature information about two different types of carbon black, as well as estimations based on industrial data. The emission amount is estimated while the composition is based on literature.
References:
Voll, M. and Kleinschmit, P. 2010. Carbon, 6. Carbon Black. Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry.
Dannenberg E. M. and Paquin L. (2000) Carbon Black. In: Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, Fourth Edition, Electronic Release, 4 th Electronic Release Edition. Wiley InterScience, New York, Online-Version under: http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/kirk.
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