Section: CRUNS Features

Although the stranded gas boom that led to the construction of the region’s nitrogen capacity in the 1980s-2000s may be largely over, the Middle East remains the largest nitrogen exporting region in the world.

Johnson Matthey and MyRechemical have formed an alliance to commercially develop waste to methanol technology. In this article, two different approaches to waste disposal and chemical production are analysed: a post combustion scenario with waste incineration and hydrogenation of the CO2 recovered from flue gas to produce methanol, and a precombustion approach with waste gasification followed by conversion of synthesis gas into methanol.

By utilising state-of-the-art technologies, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate producers are able to reduce the environmental impact of their production plants and make a key contribution to climate protection.

MegaZonE™ is a newly introduced layered loading technology for boiling water-cooled reactors used for methanol synthesis. This new concept is one of the latest results of the long-standing collaboration between Air Liquide Engineering & Construction and Clariant Catalysts to improve the methanol process flowsheet and optimise catalyst performance in the complete reactor system.

T. Hentrich and B. Nowak of VDM Metals provide an overview of the development of VDM® Alloy 699 XA, a new generation, metal dusting resistant alloy, available in a wide range of product forms, for demanding applications in the chemical process industry.

A round-up of current and proposed projects involving non-nitrogen synthesis gas derivatives, including methanol, hydrogen, synthetic/substitute natural gas (SNG) and gas- and coal to liquids (GTL/CTL) plants.

Plans to decarbonise power production and shipping are leading to increasing interest in using ammonia as a fuel, but technical and economic barriers still remain to be overcome.

The internals of ammonia synthesis converters are generally made of austenitic stainless steel to withstand the harsh operating conditions (high temperature, high pressure and synthesis gas containing hydrogen and ammonia). Since nitriding is the most critical material degradation for the converter internals, Casale has set up a large nitriding analysis campaign. In the last decade, samples of materials operated under different pressures and temperatures and for different time spans have been tested and analysed. The data obtained has been used to increase nitriding knowledge and to establish a correlation to predict nitriding rate to allow the most suitable material and relevant thickness to be selected. L. Redaelli and G. Deodato of Casale report on how this correlation was established and provide valuable insight on this phenomenon and how to predict and control it.

To comply with stricter stack emission obligations, industries are required to recover more heat from flue gas and to clean it before it can be discharged into the atmosphere. J. Kitzhofer of APEX Group discusses the challenges and limitations of the majority of current heat recovery systems and reports on a new family of acid resistant tubular and plate-type heat exchangers developed by APEX Group that overcomes these problems. The new heat exchangers are resistant to dew point corrosion. The heat transfer elements are constructed from an acid resistant polymer composite with high thermal conductivity, allowing the design of new trouble-free heat recovery systems and the upgrade of existing systems to meet heat recovery and stack emission targets.

Metal dusting corrosion damage on steam reformers is no longer a major issue in modern methane steam reformer units. Nevertheless, failures related to metal dusting corrosion attack still take place in some specific designs and configurations that are more prone to experience this damage. Poor maintenance or deterioration of insulation components on transition areas might expose metallic surfaces to metal dusting attack. In this article, Dr P. Cardín and P. Imízcoz of Schmidt+Clemens Group describe different case studies, where the end users benefited from the experience of a collaboration to address potential risks and improve plant reliability against metal dusting corrosion damage.