Study on industrial metabolism of carbon in a Chinese fine chemical industrial park

Carbon metabolism of a chemical industrial park remains scarce in literature, due to overwhelming data collection workload and intricate interfirm flow examination. Based on five-year intensive data collection and verification, this research presents the findings of one-year static carbon metabolism in a typical Chinese fine chemical industrial park. As to the total direct carbon input (0.38 million tons), 32% concern chemicals production, while the remaining 68% are related to energy conversion. Three common metrics, carbon efficiency, C factor, and E factor are applied to assess the performance of carbon flows. Based on an analysis of 380 raw chemicals and 130 chemical products, performance of the three kinds of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, dyes, and other fine chemicals, and the chemical industrial park as a whole are considered and compared with similar industrial area, respectively. The carbon efficiency of chemicals production is 69%, while the other 31% ends up in waste. The interfirm carbon flow accounts for 3.4% of the carbon inputs in raw chemicals. Pursuing local environmental goals (i.e., abatement of odor, chemical oxygen demand, and solid waste) results in greater CO₂ emissions, which runs against protection of the global environment. Options to improve carbon efficiency were also discussed from three aspects. This study lays groundwork for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions, benchmarking carbon efficiency, and conducting life cycle assessment on the park level. © 2012 American Chemical Society.