Tag: RATE

Preliminary engineering work has started on a renewable powerto-fertilizer plant in Kenya.

Polysulphate is an affordable, easy-to-use, multi-nutrient fertilizer with a low environmental impact. ICL’s chief agronomist, Patricia Imas, highlights the crop benefits of this natural and high-value product.

The crushing and grinding of mined phosphate rock and potash ore is a vital preparatory step for subsequent beneficiation and chemical processing. Although often overlooked, the efficiency of downstream P & K fertilizer production is heavily reliant on successful particle size reduction upstream.

We highlight the large-scale nitrogen projects that are currently under development across the globe – with a focus on ammonia and urea technology licensors and engineering contractors.

A selection of innovative products and technologies that have recently been brought to market.

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.

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.

A. Goudarzi of CECO Industrial Solutions discusses the science behind NOx content and how it impacts sulphuric acid producers. In a recent project in Korea, TWIN-PAK® candle filter technology was successfully used to reduce NOx emissions in metallurgical oleum tower production. After installation of the candle filter mist eliminators the plant was compliant with environmental regulations enabling the producer to operate the plant without penalties or shutdowns.