Steam ammonia plants

High temperature steam reforming of natural gas accounts for 97% of the hydrogen used for ammonia synthesis in the United States. Hydrogen requirement for ammonia synthesis is about 336 m /t of ammonia produced for a typical 1000 t/d ammonia plant. The near-term demand for ammonia remains stagnant. Methanol production requires 560 m of hydrogen for each ton produced, based on a 2500-t/d methanol plant. Methanol demand is expected to increase in response to an increased use of the fuel—oxygenate methyl /-butyl ether (MTBE). 

In 1974 a 1000 t/d ammonia plant went into operation near Johaimesburg, South Africa. The lignitic (subbituminous) coal used there contains about 14% ash, 36% volatile matter, and 1% sulfur. The plant has six Koppers-Totzek low pressure, high temperature gasifiers. Refrigerated methanol (—38° C, 3.0 MPa (30 atm)) is used to remove H2S. A 58% CO mixture reacts with steam over an iron catalyst to produce H2. The carbon dioxide is removed with methanol (at —58° C and 5.2 MPa (51 atm)). Ammonia synthesis is carried out at ca 22 MPa (220 atm) (53) (see Ammonia). 

Of the raw material hydrogen sources—natural gas, coal, and petroleum fractions—natural gas is the most often employed in ammonia plants in the 1990s and steam reforming is by far the most often used process. Partial oxidation processes are utilized where steam-reformable feeds are not available or in special situations where local conditions exist to provide favorable economics. Table 5 fists the contribution of the various feedstocks to world ammonia... 

Steam-Reforming Natural Gas. Natural gas is the single most common raw material for the manufacture of ammonia. A typical flow sheet for a high capacity single-train ammonia plant is iadicated ia Figure 12. The important process steps are feedstock purification, primary and secondary reforming, shift conversion, carbon dioxide removal, synthesis gas purification, ammonia synthesis, and recovery. 

The operation of a large synthetic ammonia plant based on natural gas involves a delicately balanced sequence of reactions. The gas is first desulfurized to remove compounds which will poison the metal catalysts, then compressed to 30 atm and reacted with steam over a nickel catalyst at 750°C in the primary steam reformer to produce H2 and oxides of carbon ... 

Preferably, an ammonia plant is constructed at a geographical location where plenty of energy (e.g. as methane) and water are available, and where easy transport of the ammonia by ship is feasible. An ammonia plant is shown in Fig. 8.20, which produces roughly 2x1350 tons ammonia per day over 2x150 tons of catalyst. The facility is visually dominated by the two steam reforming plants, which are easily recognized. 

Since 1923, methanol has been made commercially from synthesis gas, the route that provides most of the methanol today. The plants are oEten found adjacent to or integrated with ammonia plants for several reasons. The technologies and hardware are similar, and the methanol plant can use the CO2 made in the Haber ammonia process. In this case, the route to methanol is to react the CO2 with methane and steam over a nickel catalyst to give additional CO and H2 and then proceed to combine these to make methanol ... 

In ammonium phosphate production and mixed and blend fertilizer manufacturing, one possibility is the integration of an ammonia process condensate steam stripping column into the condensate-boiler feedwater systems of an ammonia plant, with or without further stripper bottoms treatment depending on the boiler quality makeup needed. 

In ammonium phosphate and mixed and blend fertilizer (G) production, another possibility is to design for a lower-pressure steam level (i.e., 42-62 atm) in the ammonia plant to make process condensate recovery easier and less costly. 

Medium-pressure steam is produced in this process to provide some plant heating/energy requirements. An economic advantage is the income derived from the export of excess steam. The steam specification corresponds to requirements for in-house application at the steam turbine, and also in response to the needs of the adjacent ammonia plant. The final steam specification is a superheated medium-pressure product at 380°C and 4000 kPa. 

Shown in Figure 10, this ammonia plant is a major part of the overall fertilizer site complex. Other major facilities include urea plant, steam system, and cooling water system. Most of the ammonia is used to make granulated urea product. The other raw material for urea synthesis is C02 from the C02 capture system in the ammonia plant, supplemented with a small stream from an adjacent business. The ammonia production and the C02 available from the ammonia plant are never precisely in balance, in part because of the overall stoichiometric yields of ammonia and C02 from the natural gas feedstock. C02 is the limiting feedstock for the urea plant and its production rate in the ammonia plant sets the urea plant production rate since there is no intermediate C02 storage to buffer the urea production from the C02 production rate. Ammonia that is produced in excess of that which is used to make urea... 

The process for ammonia manufacture will vary somewhat with the source of hydrogen, but the majority of ammonia plants generate the hydrogen by steam reforming natural gas or hydrocarbons such as naphtha (Fig. 2). 

Fortunately, efforts in addition to those of DOE are being implemented. The Tennessee Valley Authority is sponsoring the construction of an entrained flow gasifier to operate at elevated pressure and to provide synthesis gas to their small Ammonia Plant at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Ironically, this ammonia plant was originally built using coke-fed water gas sets for synthesis gas production. It was converted to use natural gas steam reforming when cheap natural gas became available. The use of coal will provide valuable data on MBG production and purification. 

A simplified flowsheet for an ammonia plant that processes natural gas via steam reforming is shown in Figure 6.7. A block diagram of this same plant is shown in Figure 6.8. This diagram lists typical stream compositions, typical operating conditions, catalyst types (recommended by Synetix) and catalyst volumes82. 

The present treatment of the conventional process will be based on the process diagram presented in Figure 1, which represents a steam reformer coupled with an ammonia synthesis plant [6], This is one of the two cases, which were considered in the project. The other was the use of the produced hydrogen as fuel in combined cycle gas turbines. In this chapter, the steam reforming part will be treated only, but some comments on the ammonia plant will be made, in view of the composition of the product stream leaving the steam reformer. 

Figure 1 Process diagram for natural-gas-based steam reformer with a connected ammonia plant [6],...

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