ecoinvent Forum Archive

Hello,

Between ecoinvent versions 3.5 and 3.7.1, the value of the elementary flow "Tellurium - Resources from ground -Non-renewable element resources from ground" has increased with a factor 1E+05 or more in most LCIs. (see attached examples for 4 activities in various sectors)

As a consequence, results of ecoinvent datasets for the category "Resource use, fossils,EF" (2.0 or 3.0, same characterization factor for tellurium) increase typically by one order of magnitude.

Where does the increase of tellurium values come from ? Is it a intended correction ?

Thank you,

Elisabeth

As a correction to my original message, it is of course the impact category “Resource use, minerals and metals” that is the focus of my question. Furthermore, I can rather write the analysis as follows: tellurium becomes the most contributing flow to the category “Resource use, minerals and metals”. Its contribution is typically one order of magnitude higher than the contribution of the most contributing flow of the 3.5 dataset (e.g. gold or copper). In total, the LCIA results of the activity can increase by a factor 2 or 3 for example, for this environmental impact.

Best regards,

Elisabeth van Overbeke

Dear Elisabeth,

Thank you for your question.

The copper sector has been updated for version 3.7.1. Please take a look at this report of changes for more information (page 67).

As part of the update, “tellurium, in ground” was added to the activity “copper mine operation and beneficiation, sulfide ore” to properly reflect the tellurium supply chain. Tellurium is produced as a by-product during the copper production chain: Tellurium is contained in the copper concentrate (from the mining activity) and copper anode (from the smelting activity). In the next step of the copper supply chain (copper electrorefining) the tellurium containing by-product anode slime is produced. Anode slime is further processed by the activity “processing of anode slime from electrorefining of copper, anode,” and yields copper telluride cement.

I hope this answers your question.

Kind regards

Nora, Data Analyst, ecoinvent