2.B.10.a - Other Chemicals

In sub-category 2.B.10.a - Other Chemicals, emissions from the production of organic chemicals,sulphuric acid, carbon black, fertilizers and from the chlor-alkali industry are reported. Relevant pollutants are NMVOC, CO, PCDD/F, SO_x, NH₃, PM_2.5, PM₁₀, TSP and Hg.

Table 1: Overview of emission sources covered

The annual production volumes for all large volume organic chemicals are extracted from national production statistics by the Federal Statistical Office ¹⁾

These chemicals comprise:

• Acrylonitrile
• Ethylene
• Ethylbenzene
• Ethylene Dichloride
• Ethylene Oxide
• Formaldehyde (Methanal)
• Methanol
• Phthalic Anhydride
• Propene
• Styrene
• Vinyl Chloride
• Polyethylene (LD/HD)
• Polypropylene
• Polystyrene
• Polyvinyl Chloride
• Styrene Copolymeres

The emission factors for the production of organic chemicals as shown in Tables 2 and 3 are derived from best reference documents for polymers and LVOC mostly for the early years. For later years, plant-specific data on an aggregated level were used.

Table 2: national NMVOC emission factors for producing organic chemicals, in kg/t

Table 3: national NMVOC emission factors for producing polymers, in kg/t

The figures for carbon black production in the new German Länder in 1990 were taken from the Statistical Yearbook (Statistisches Jahrbuch) for the Federal Republic of Germany; the figures for 1991 and 1992 were estimated, due to confidentiality requirements. The other data for carbon-black production as of 1990 were obtained from national production statistics¹⁾.

From 2005 onwards, Germany uses activity data calculated from the CO₂ emissions of the Emission Trading System (ETS), delivered by the German emission trading authority (DEHSt), and the default CO₂ emission factor from the IPCC Guidelines 2006 for carbon black production. A comparison of the statistical data and the emission trading data leads to the conclusion, that the statistical data is most probably overestimated.

Table 4: Emission factors of carbon black in Germany, in kg/t

The activity data is also extracted from national production statistics by the Federal Statistical Office¹⁾ and consists of mono and multicomponent fertilizers.

The emission factors are country specific (Jörß et al. 2006)²⁾ and are presented in the following table.

Table 5: Emission factors of fertilizers in Germany, in kg/t

The activity data is from the federal statistical office of Germany (GP 2015 31 300). The amount of urea is reported there in t-N. As the emission factor is in kg/t urea, the reported amount of urea in t-N is multiplied with the molar mass of urea and divided with the molar mass of nitric (60.06/14).

AR of urea (in t) = AR of urea (in t-N) * (molar mass of urea)/ (molar mass of N)

The emission factor is 2.5 kg/t urea, which is a T2 EF from the EMEP/EEA Guidebook 2019 ³⁾.

The activity data for sulphuric acid production is from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany.

For the SO_x EF for sulphuric acid production a survey was made in the year 2019. The producers were directly asked by the association. Based on the data from the producers, new EFs for the years 2017 and 2018 were developed. All emissions were measured by the producers respectively or limit values are specified in the permit decision for the installation. The EF is weighted by the amount of H₂SO₄ produced. Big producers have more influence on the EF than small producers. The EF is smaller than the Default-EF. This is due to significant process optimizations and technology improvements since 1990.

For the mercury (Hg) losses from the Chlor-alkali industry, Germany used the yearly published data from OSPAR ⁴⁾ on the plant specific production capacity for the AD and the plant specific emissions from the chlor-alkali industry. Because of the BAT (best available technique) conclusion for the Chlor-alkali industry, the production based upon the amalgam process has stopped in 2017. Most production sites switched to membrane technology. However, emissions of Hg are still ocurring, because two production sites still continue to uses the amalgam process for the production of certain alcoholates; not regulated by the BAT conclusions for Chlor-alkali production. Before 2018 these Hg-emissions were reported together with the Hg-emissions from Chlor-alkali production. But the OSPAR convention does not request the Hg-emissions from alcoholate production to be reported, so CEFIC does no longer report these emissions to OSPAR. As from 2018 PRTR data is used to determine mercury emissions belonging to the alcoholate production. Due to a delay of the 2019 PRTR data the 2018 emission value is used also in 2019 and 2020.

For SO₂ emissions from sulphuric acid production, and for Hg emissions from chlor-alkali industry, the emissions of the two last years are always actualized. This is because the emissions of the last year are always a prediction, as the final emissions are still not published by the time of reporting.

From Submission 2022 the SO₂ emissions from titanium dioxide production are no longer confidential and are therefore reallocated to category 2.B.6. Thus, the SO₂ emissions reported here are only from the sulphuric acid production (See Table 6)

Table 6: SO₂ emission from sulphuric acid production

So far Germany reported NH₃ and TSP emissions from nitric fertilizer production. Germany has decided to not report this category anymore, but to report emissions from the category urea production instead. There are several reasons to do this. First, the category nitric fertilizer production is a country specific category and there is no method described in the EMEP/EEA Guidebook for this. Second, Germany has no data source for the activity data for this category for many years. During the investigation Germany came to the assumption that there is a double counting of TSP emissions from nitric fertilizer production and fertilizer production. Therefore, instead of nitric fertilizer production Germany reports NH₃ emissions from urea production based on the Emep/EEA Guidebook method, using statistical data from the federal statistical office since the submission 2022, which will be available in future too. With this step Germany has improved the quality of the reporting of the fertilizer porduction in Germany.

Table 7: NH₃ and TSP emissions from urea production and nitric fertilizer production

There are no planned improvements.