modified Solvay process, Hou's process, UPR, ecoinvent 3.6, Undefined

Categories:
ISIC4 categories:
C:Manufacturing/20:Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products/201:Manufacture of basic chemicals, fertilizers and nitrogen compounds, plastics and synthetic rubber in primary forms/2011:Manufacture of basic chemicals
Location:
GLO - Global
Reference year: 2000 - 2006
Description

Location: GLO - Global
This dataset represents the modified Solvay process. Within the ammonium chloride production, sodium carbonate is derived as co-product. The functional unit is 1 kg ammonium. The system includes the process with consumption of raw materials, energy, infrastructure, and land use, as well as the generation of emissions to air and water. It also includes transportation of the raw materials. Transient or unstable operations like starting-up or shutting-down, are not included, but the production during stable operation conditions. Storage and transportation of the final product are also not included. It is assumed that the manufacturing plants are located in an urban/industrial area and consequently the emissions are categorised as emanating in a high population density area. The emissions into water are assumed to be emitted into rivers.
[The full documentation of this dataset was originally provided in the corresponding ecoinvent report from the Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories, which is accessible for free to guests and users of ecoinvent version 2 (https://www.ecoinvent.org/login-databases.html). The dataset may subsequently have been subjected to central changes to the database, as described in the respective change report for each new release.]
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.

Technology

The Modified Solvay process is one of the most important processes to produce ammonium chloride.
In the Solvay process, ammonia and carbon dioxide are dissolved in aqueous sodium chloride to produce sparingly soluble sodium bicarbonate, which is calcined to sodium carbonate. The ammonia is recovered from the mother liquor by reaction with lime, this reaction also producing the calcium chloride. The source of the lime and the carbon dioxide is limestone. The net reaction is the conversion of the feedstocks rock salt and limestone into sodium carbonate and the byproduct calcium chloride.
Water, carbon dioxide, and ammonia are added only to the extent necessary to compensate for plant losses. The feedstock and product dictate the location of a Solvay plant. For this reason, the plants normally function as largely independent units.
The modified Solvay process (ammonium chloride – soda ash process) is one of the oldest examples of integrated industrial production of two substances. It differs from the Solvay process in that ammonium chloride is also precipitated from the mother liquor. The net reaction is

Process type
Unit
Supported nomenclature
ecoinvent 3.6
LCI modeling approach
Before modeling
Multifunctional modeling
NONE
Format
ECOSPOLD2
Aggregation type
NOT_APPLICABLE
Data provider
ecoinvent
Review status
External
Cost
For sale
License

ecoinvent EULA