ecoinvent Forum Archive

This is a general question about ecoinvent (hopefully the solution is also general):

For most chemicals, fertilizers, etc., the dataset name indicates that the chemical is in a particular solution state (for instance: "sodium hypochlorite production, product in 15% solution state") but the documentation is ambiguous about how to interpret this. I thought I had read that the reference flow always corresponds to the amount of active ingredient, not the amount of solution-- so the mass of 1 kg of "ssodium hypochlorite, without water, in 15% solution state" is actually 6.7 kg, including 1 kg of NaClO and 5.7 kg of water. 

This is important because when using the product, if my inventory calls for 1 kg of "sodium hypochlorite 12.5%", then I actually need 0.125 kg of the target dataset, because the target dataset indicates the active ingredient only.

1- is this correct?

2- where is this documented?

Thanks in advance.

I have so much deja vu- I feel like i've asked this question before, but nothing came up on the search...

Hi Brandon,

The approach set for version 3 was documented in our Data Quality Guidelines for ecoinvent 3, page 60.

Please refer to this thread for clarification: https://www.ecoinvent.org/support/ecoinvent-forum/topic.html?&tid=61 .

Mind that you might find some chemicals with a grade indicated, those might have a lower purity (e.g. solar salts, https://www.ecoinvent.org/files/change_report_v3_6_20190912.pdf), this is always documented in the meta information.

Kind Regards,

Daria Dellenbach, Junior Data Analyst, ecoinvent association

Thanks- that was the thread I was looking for!