Can I view carbon content (biogenic/fossil) in ecoinvent 3.9.1 inside openLCA?

Question

Hello,
I am working with ecoinvent 3.9.1 (imported via the .zolca package) in openLCA, and I need to access the carbon content information—for example:

• biogenic carbon content

• fossil carbon content

• total carbon content

• water content, density, or other exchange properties

However, I cannot find these properties in the exchanges or in any process documentation inside openLCA.

My question:
Does openLCA allow viewing exchange properties (e.g., carbon content) from ecoinvent 3.9.1?
Or are these properties not imported from the EcoSpold2 files into the .zolca version?

If not supported, is there any workaround other than manually checking the EcoSpold2 XML files or using ecoQuery?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Hello,

In the newest ecoinvent 3.12 version we have included the ecoinvent properties like carbon content, water content etc. into the flow description field. You can also look up the properties in ecoQuery if you want to.

One point to mention is that it does not make sense to attach the properties to exchanges, since ecoinvent only provides them per flow. It means, that all exchanges that use this flow will have the same property, e.g. electricity costs the same in China and in Europe.

Nevertheless, it can be sometimes useful for modeling and allocation to have these values if no other/better values exist. But care should be taken in using them and they should be checked for plausibility and if the property fits to the specific exchange. As mentioned before, they can be always looked up in ecoQuery, or since version 3.12, can be looked up in the flow description field.

Best wishes,

Conrad

Comments

"Thank you for the answer, Conrad.

Just to confirm my understanding regarding ecoinvent 3.12: does this mean the properties (like fossil/biogenic carbon) are added to the "Description" field as unstructured free text, rather than being stored as numeric values in the "Flow Properties" tab?

Also, could you clarify the situation for ecoinvent 3.11? Since the ecoinvent documentation states these properties exist in the database, were they also excluded from the openLCA .zolca import (similar to version 3.9.1)?"

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Yes, they are stored as text. Of course we can also store them as a flow property, but it might be too "dangerous" that then these properties are used for modeling without reasoning checks.

Of course, you can anytime also add the flow properties for some flows that you are using by yourself. This is all possible in openLCA. As I wrote before, they need to be taken with care. That's why we think that if users really need them, like in some EPDs, they can read the property from the flow description field or from ecoQuery and include it in calculations or modeling efforts as needed.

Here an example from 1 single flow:
price: 0 EUR2005
chromium content: 0.0000344 dimensionless
copper content: 0.00027 dimensionless
heating value, gross: 14.5 MJ
arsenic content: 0.00000248 dimensionless
zinc content: 0.000666 dimensionless
silver content: 0.00000929 dimensionless
phosphorus content: 0.0172 dimensionless
lead content: 0.0000323 dimensionless
beryllium content: 0.00000016 dimensionless
carbon content, non-fossil: 0.353 dimensionless
titanium content: 0.000124 dimensionless
antimony content: 0.00000292 dimensionless
hydrogen content: 0.0492 dimensionless
nitrogen content: 0.044 dimensionless
nickel content: 0.0000131 dimensionless
cadmium content: 0.00000132 dimensionless
carbon content, fossil: 0.00929 dimensionless
sodium content: 0.00271 dimensionless
selenium content: 0.00000281 dimensionless
water in wet mass: 0.75 kg
dry mass: 0.25 kg
wet mass: 1 kg
tin content: 0.0000197 dimensionless
manganese content: 0.00036 dimensionless
scandium content: 0.00000426 dimensionless
potassium content: 0.00347 dimensionless
silicon content: 0.00284 dimensionless
mercury content: 0.000000291 dimensionless
oxygen content: 0.439 dimensionless
water content: 3 dimensionless
heating value, net: 1.72 MJ
magnesium content: 0.00343 dimensionless
cobalt content: 0.00000665 dimensionless
boron content: 0.000024 dimensionless
aluminium content: 0.000026 dimensionless
vanadium content: 0.0000234 dimensionless
molybdenum content: 0.00000663 dimensionless
strontium content: 0.000277 dimensionless
sulfur content: 0.0034 dimensionless
tungsten content: 0.00000139 dimensionless
thallium content: 0.000000202 dimensionless
barium content: 0.000303 dimensionless
calcium content: 0.0432 dimensionless
iron content: 0.0274 dimensionless

Storing all this in the flow properties would make the modeling experience less good. Whenever you want to select the unit of your exchange in the process, you would get many units for plenty of different properties that are not used at all in most of the cases.

But we could think about adding the carbon content and lower heating value as a flow property, since they are used the most in modeling. As I said, one can also quickly add them yourself to the respective flow if wanted.