Single-Train Plants with Centrifugal Compressors

Single-Train Plants with Centrifugal Compressors 

During the first fifty years of their existence ammonia plants were set up as parallel synthesis loops, called trains, with the gas compression requirements of each unit supplied separately by a reciprocating compressor (during the last year of its operation in 1990 Leuna had eighteen synthesis loops). These compressors were powered initially either by coke-oven gas (as in Oppau) or by steam (as in Leuna), but electric motors soon became the prime movers of choice. Reciprocating compres- 

Synthesis of ammonia has been a highly competitive business since the 1920s, and so it was inevitable that other engineering firms soon followed Kellogg s lead in 

Haldor Tops0e s ammonia converter installed at the Aonla plant in India (height 23 m, diameter 3 m, annual capacity 500,000 t NH3). Courtesy of Haldor Topsoe, Lyngby, Denmark. 

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Single-Train Plants with Centrifugal Compressors... 

A decade later a large single-train plant—with high-pressure reforming (above 3 MPa) and centrifugal compressors producing converter pressure 15 MPa—reduced the energy need to 35 GJ/t NH3. Because their compressors are powered by... 

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