Category: Outlook & Reviews

Are we on the verge of a fertilizer production, trade and supply crisis? Some usually sober and authoritative voices seem to think so.

Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media

The feed phosphates industry is caught between conflicting trends currently, according to Alberto Persona of the Fertecon fertilizer team at IHS Markit. While the long-term demand-side fundamentals look broadly stable, there is still likely to be a fight for market share due to competition from substitute products and the emergence of new projects.

More than 230 delegates from 45 countries participated in CRU’s Sustainable Fertilizer Production Technology Forum, 20-23 September 2021. To highlight this successful virtual event, we report on keynote and selected technical presentations.

Fertilizer International presents a global round-up of current potash projects.

ACI will convene the 5th European Mineral Fertilizer Summit in London on 1-2 December 2021. Fertilizer International is proud to be a partner for this year’s event.

Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media

A move towards smaller scale feedstocks such as renewable energy and waste and biomass gasification is leading to increased focus on improving the efficiency of small-scale, modular plants.

A detailed rain and wastewater concept is an important part of a urea plant to meet current stringent environmental standards. Wastewater can originate from the process reaction or from outside the process equipment. In order to optimise the wastewater system of a urea plant, both the amount and type of contamination need to be known. With this knowledge, non-contaminated rainwater as well as process drains can be kept separate as much as possible to minimise the amount of wastewater to be treated, saving costs and energy. Wastewater treatment concepts from thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions and Toyo Engineering Corporation are described.

Scanfeld™ is the world’s first remote sensing solution for fully automated early-warning gas leak detection for chemical plants. Using FTIR spectroscopy, Scanfeld™ identifies hundreds of different gases in real time from kilometres away. With just a few Scanfeld™ sensor units, large production sites, tank farms, or gas loading areas can be monitored reliably. Gas leaks are quickly detected, and the formation of dangerous gas clouds is monitored, measured, and visualised. René Braun of Grandperspective discusses how the system works and how it is being applied in industry.