Nitrogen + Syngas 2020

CONFERENCE PREVIEW

Nitrogen + Syngas 2020

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.

Senior technical professionals from the nitrogen and syngas industries will be gathering 17-19 February in The Hague to attend CRU’s annual Nitrogen + Syngas conference, which has become one of the largest gatherings for the global nitrogen and syngas industry – covering ammonia, urea, methanol, syngas, nitrates, GTL and industrial gases. This year the three-day agenda incorporates practical workshops, industry insights from CRU’s nitrogen analysts and other industry experts, and a comprehensive dual-streamed agenda, featuring an extensive programme of technical papers focused on the latest technology, process and equipment innovations, and operational best practice. The content of the conference programme is guided by a technical steering committee of experts representing producers, licensors, and independent consultants, ensuring a highquality platform for professional development and peer-to-peer learning.

Running alongside the conference is an exhibition of 90+ world-class process, materials, equipment and technology providers, offering a wide range of technical services. Networking and meeting time is also scheduled throughout the agenda to maximise interaction.

The first day of the conference will feature the Technical Showcase – 12 short presentations covering a wide range of topics – followed by the keynote plenary session in the afternoon which will explore the role of nitrogen and syngas producers in the circular economy.

The technical programme on the following two days will be run in parallel sessions and will feature sessions on: steam reforming, ammonia, urea, nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, melamine, plant safety and efficiency, equipment and materials of construction.

Technical programme selected highlights

New reforming technology lowers CO2 emissions

Clariant and TechnipFMC will introduce Enhanced Annular Reforming Tube for Hydrogen (EARTH ® ) for hydrogen/syngas production. It is a drop-in insert for existing or new reformer tubes, comprising a unique geometric arrangement of a stable and mechanically robust structured reforming catalyst and concentric heat exchange tubes inside the main reformer tube to simultaneously achieve higher throughput and heat recovery in steam methane reformers. The EARTH ® reactor technology can also be used to increase capacity by up to 20% and has carbon footprint benefits compared to conventional steam reforming technologies, allowing for up to 10% CO2 emissions reduction per unit of hydrogen produced. Experience with EARTH ® in an industrial HyCO/syngas unit in Europe will be shared. Significant fuel savings (>30%) were achieved and the furnace efficiency was increased by more than 20%.

CO2 capture lessons learned

Engro Fertilizers will share operational experience of multiple units at its site that capture CO 2 including: a BASF process gas purification unit, BASF feed gas purification unit, MHI carbon dioxide recovery unit and Catacarb process gas purification unit. The presentation will cover in detail the operational problems that have been faced during start-up/shutdown and normal operation and will discuss the reactive and proactive measures taken to operate these facilities with full efficiency.

Europe’s largest single train ammonia plant

In June 2019 EuroChem Group AG officially opened a new ammonia plant, EuroChem Northwest in Kingisepp, Russia, with the largest single train production capacity in Europe at 1 million tonnes per year. The plant is designed according to the KBR Purifier ™ ammonia process. KBR will present various project milestones and design aspects of the project, including troubleshooting and lessons learned during commissioning of the project. Sensitive to local environmental concerns, the plant was built on a brownfield site and care was taken to avoid any negative impact on the surrounding areas. The facility features a closed water recycling system to prevent effluent discharges to the nearby Luga River, which flows into the Baltic Sea in the Gulf of Finland.

Optimising urea plant operation

Yara will discuss optimisation of a urea high pressure section with N/C soft-sensing. Yara’s urea production plant in Ferrara, Italy, features an isobaric double recycle synthesis loop (IDR), including a urea reactor, both thermal and CO2 stripping heat exchangers and a carbamate condenser. The strong influence of recycles and residence times on the process dynamics poses a great challenge to operate the plant stable at optimal conditions. The N/C ratio is one of the most relevant process parameters in the synthesis loop. The orthogonal least squares regression method has been applied to obtain a robust empirical online prediction of N/C ratio based on nine online measurements. After four years of successful open-loop utilisation, the N/C soft-sensor has recently been included in a model predictive control application.

CO2 seal gas recovery

Fauji Fertilizer Company will share its experience with a novel CO2 seal gas recovery system that has been implemented at a urea plant to reduce CO2 losses to the atmosphere from the seals of a CO2 centrifugal compressor, improve energy efficiency and decrease the overall carbon footprint. The modification was implemented without any change to the mechanical design of the compressor sealing system to ensure its reliable operation. Details of the various options considered for recovery of CO2 seal gas and the basis for the selection of the ejector based system to recover the seal gas will be discussed.

Successful commissioning and start-up of an ACES21® urea plant

Toyo Engineering Corporation (TOYO) has recently successfully commissioned two urea plants utilising TOYO’s ACES21 ® technology, a 2 x 2,000 t/d urea plant for Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals Limited in India and a 1,725 t/d urea plant for PT Petrokimia Gresik (PKG) in Indonesia. Effective involvement of the owners with their broad experience of operating urea plants contributed to the successful commissioning of the plant. TOYO will describe the key factors and lessons learned during plant commissioning and start-up of the urea plants. PKG’s efforts to ensure successful completion of the project from the owner’s point of view and the performance during one year of operation will also be described.

Solving poor performance of the HP stripper in a urea plant

Poor performance of the HP stripper in a urea plant can have several causes, the most frequent cause being oil contamination, which clogs the holes of the liquid dividers in the HP stripper leading to reduced efficiency. Abu Qir Fertilizers Company will discuss a study carried out to investigate the poor performance of their HP stripper, which had occurred on more than one occasion. Solutions to the problem during operation of the plant and protective measures to prevent it from happening will also be discussed. The procedure to clean the internals of the HP stripper so that the plant can continue normal operations in case the plant has to be stopped as a result of bad stripping efficiency, will be described.

Root cause analysis of problems in a nitric acid plant

Johnson Matthey will present a recent case study from a MP nitric acid plant with a nitrogen loading of 12 t/d. The plant had performance issues early into a new campaign run, experiencing low conversion efficiency and high levels of N 2 O emissions. The root cause analysis process and the fault tree analysis developed from an identification exercise of potential cause factors will be described. As part of the investigation Johnson Matthey used its proprietary kinetic model to simulate the performance of the gauzes and to determine the reaction profile within the catalytic packs. How the systemised design and modelling applies to the technology systems offered to the nitric acid industry will also be described.

New nitric acid plant in Uzbekistan

Navoiazot, the largest chemical company in Uzbekistan, has awarded Casale an EPC lump sum turnkey project for a new nitric acid plant with a nominal capacity of 1,500 t/d, based on dual pressure technology (former GPN/Borealis). Casale will present the process solutions adopted and provide an overview of the main project schedule and milestones. Key features of the design are the single ammonia oxidation burner that simplifies the plant layout and providing easier Pt gauze management, the combination of secondary and tertiary catalyst to achieve lower emission limits for NOx and N 2 O with a simplified abatement arrangement and the extended absorption column design that integrates a closed loop chilling water circuit, which recovered a part of the ammonia evaporation latent heat to minimise the NOx slip. Start-up of the plant is expected mid-2020.

Enhanced efficiency fertilizer at a world scale urea production facility

Koch Fertilizer recently decided to incorporate an enhanced efficiency fertilizer (EEF) – SUPERU ® premium fertilizer into its urea production facility located in Enid, Oklahoma. SUPERU is a 46% nitrogen urea granule that is stabilised by incorporating both a urease and nitrification inhibitor. SUPERU utilises Koch Agronomic Services proprietary N-TEGRATION ™ technology that allows effective levels of NBPT and DCD to be uniformly incorporated throughout every urea granule. Koch Agronomic Services will discuss the intricacies of the installation and the success and value of utilising this technology at a fertilizer plant with the aim to help other producers understand how this works and how they can implement this system into their own plants.

Low carbon hydrogen technology

Today, industrial hydrogen with the majority of users in refineries, ammonia and methanol production, is predominantly made by steam methane reforming of natural gas which produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct. Global production of hydrogen is forecast to grow and a low carbon gas solution for hydrogen production will be important to achieve the aims of the Paris Protocol and impact on climate change. To address this challenge, Johnson Matthey has developed the Low Carbon Hydrogen (LCH) technology which is capable of producing high purity hydrogen with a CO2 capture rate in excess of 97% for use in carbon capture and storage (CCS). Johnson Matthey will describe the new technology and its key features. Compared to conventional steam methane reforming LCH technology offers several benefits:

• recovery of high grade heat at the maximum energy;
• uses high reformer temperatures to minimise methane in the syngas and hence CO2 emissions;
• increases energy efficiency and capex benefits by recovering all the carbon dioxide at process pressure;
• minimises the amount of difficult to capture CO2 in combustion products.

Advanced urea spray nozzles reduce dust formation

thyssenkrupp Fertilizer Technology will present its new advanced urea spray nozzles which have been developed to improve the spray pattern of urea solution droplets in such a way that the amount of dust generated as well as the build-up rate of scaling on the walls of the UFT ® fluid bed granulator walls is reduced, while maintaining excellent product quality and a longer running cycle. The results of tests carried out in tkFT’s pilot plant and the demonstration at industrial scale at GPIC’s urea plant in Bahrain, which produces urea at rates more than 20% above nameplate capacity, showed a significant reduction in dust (-30%), while keeping the process parameters in such a range that a retrofit of an existing urea plant is possible without major mechanical modifications to any of the related equipment. In 2018 the new type tkFT spray nozzles have been implemented in a new 3,500 t/d urea plant in central Asia with outstanding results in terms of product quality, production flexibility and operational reliability.