openLCA archived user forum

Hi,

I am trying to keep track of mass and energy balances in my model using ecoinvent v3.3. I can however not find the exchange properties anywhere within the database imported to openLCA. I am particularly keen on carbon contents, dry mass, water content, water in wet mass and wet mass associated with each input and output since I am modelling bioenergy chains with considerable ds and moisture losses over the life cycle.

Is this information not available through the openLCA interface or am I simply not looking hard enough?

Thankyou

Hi, indeed the exchange properties are not part of the current openLCA data model and are lost in the import (or also: not provided in our ecoinvent 3.3. release which I would recommend to use) - but they are also not provided in other LCA software I think?
Best wishes,
Andreas

I believe adding exchange properties could be interesting for some cases though, but maybe not as implemented in ecoinvent (providing the amount of water content for zinc ion - that is a bit similar to listing zinc ion emissions for every activity / process, with 0 amount in most cases)

Thanks for clarifying. Now that I know I should stop looking I can proceed and add the necessary flows to construct the mass balance myself.

I think you are right. I have not seen these properties in other software either. They would however be useful sometimes, as in my case.
I believe people interested in WF would also appreciate them. If these properties are handled separately from resource use and emission flows (not included in the inventory used to calculate impacts), they would be extremely helpful to ensure that proper mass and energy balances are maintained.