Magazine: 363 Jan-Feb 2020

A complete listing of all articles and news items that appeared in Nitrogen+Syngas magazine during 2019.

CRU’s Nitrogen + Syngas conference and exhibition takes place this year at the World Forum, The Hague, in The Netherlands, from 17 to 19 February 2020.

BASF has filed a patent application for a greenhouse gas-free method for producing methanol. If successful on a large-scale, the process could eliminate carbon dioxide emissions throughout the entire production process from synthesis gas generation to pure methanol.

Cryogenic purge gas recovery units are very tolerant to increased flow from ammonia plant debottlenecking, especially the cryogenic cold box section. However, overload of the dehydration system upstream of the cold box can lead to fouling, loss of hydrogen recovery performance and the need for costly shutdown and thaw. Awareness of key plant parameters and some simple precautions can avoid such problems. A. J. Finn and T. R. Tomlinson of Costain provide some guidance.

EuroChem Group has announced the appointment of Samir Brikho as chairman of the company’s board of directors. Brikho has served on the board since 2018. He has also held senior management positions at Asea and ABB Power Generation between 1983 and 2000, before moving to Alstom, where he served as Chief International Operations Officer and Senior Vice-President, and CEO of Alstom Kraftwerke in Germany. In 2003, he became CEO of ABB Lummus Global and in 2005 he was appointed to the Group Executive Committee of ABB Ltd, and served as Head of the Power Systems Division at ABB Group. From 2006 to 2016 he was CEO of Amec Foster Wheeler. In 2009 and 2016 Brikho was chair of the World Economic Forum’s Engineering and Construction Board.

Highlights of papers presented at the recent Ammonium Nitrate/Nitric Acid (ANNA) Conference, held in September in Vienna.

The different flame velocities of reactants in the combustion space of a secondary reformer have a significant impact on the gas inlet temperature of the catalyst and the methane conversion in front of the catalyst. Based on this fact, Hanno Tautz Engineering introduces an alternative secondary reformer design. Compared with the state-of-the-art-technology, the alternative design shows advantages for hydrogen production efficiency and product capacity.

M. Wilson, J. Brightling and M. Carlsson of Johnson Matthey detail the development of steam reforming catalyst, with a focus on an operating case study, where Johnson Matthey has combined pelleted and structured reforming catalysts to deliver additional value from an existing asset.

Liquid ammonia is one of the feeds to the urea plant. It typically comes from the ammonia plant at a pressure of about 20 bar. In the urea plant this liquid ammonia is further pumped up to synthesis pressure conditions, sometimes after passing through a buffer tank, a heater and/or a filter. According to the ammonia phase diagram, when liquid ammonia flashes to atmospheric pressure temperatures can drop to as low as -33°C under worst case conditions. In case one or more of the above mentioned items of equipment needs to be drained for maintenance, a decision needs to be made where to drain this liquid ammonia. In a urea plant the options are the ammonia water tank or the vent stack, but which is best option?

Brazil is the main centre for new nitrogen demand in Latin America, but in spite of major oil and gas discoveries in the 2000s, has failed to develop a downstream nitrogen fertilizer industry.