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Since 100 years ago the industrial production of ammonia began for the widespread agricultural and industrial application. Safety hazards and risks have been identified and for a large extend resolved.

Nowadays ammonia is used more and more as a very efficient hydrogen energy storage, carrier and carbon free fuel. This means that more and more people will get involved with this potentially toxic substance. How will the public and the authorities react?

Are the previously known safety regulations sufficient for the storage / bunkering of ammonia?

We say no, it can be better, more safe and reliable.

“Highest Safety and Reliability Standards, Minimum Maintenance and Repair Efforts”

The heart of every urea plant is the urea reactor. The high pressures, high temperatures and the presence of very corrosive ammonium carbamate puts high demands on its reliability and safety during its typical lifetime of 40-50 years. UreaKnowHow.com has established a Urea Incident Database containing numerous serious incidents with urea reactors and a Urea Reactor Risk Register containing fifty risks and failure modes of a traditional design urea reactor. Based on the above information plus by applying our extensive experience and knowledge, we can offer you the complete detailed design specification of a State-of-The-Art Urea Reactor with optimum design details of the carbon steel pressure bearing wall, the protective layers and all the internals. This will realise the highest reliability and safety standards and minimize maintenance and repair efforts.

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UreaKnowHow.com introduces a new initiative for the nitrogen fertilizer industry: An E-MarketPlace for revamps, upgrades, equipment supply, diagnostics, audits, repairs, etcetera. Post your equipment / project and/or services requests or offers (excluding confidential information) in our E-MarketPlace. Click here for posting your inquiries and click here for posting your offers.

High Temperature Hydrogen Attack (HTHA) is a problem which concerns steels operating at elevated temperatures in hydrogen environments. It is not to be confused with hydrogen embrittlement or other forms of low temperature hydrogen damage. HTHA is a time-temperature-pressure function. These, basically means the longer that a piece of equipment is exposed to temperatures above its resistance limit in certain hydro-process environment (see API941-NELSON Curve), the more damage to the steel will accumulate; and the higher the temperature rises above the limit of the steel, the more rapidly the damage will occur. Monitoring the integrity of equipment in HTHA-Service is necessary to avoid accidents, especially if one of the following reasons are true: - HTHA in many old plants -is true for many ammonia plants- can occur especially after a long onstream-time, if the incubation time ended. - However, there have been several cases where HTHA was found, even though operating conditions were below the Nelson Curve. - There are new findings since 2016: After explosion in the TESORO refinery with 7 dead, it must be assumed that HTHA in C steel can already be expected at > 204 °C and a hydrogen partial pressure of pH2 > 3.45 bar. It is strongly recommended to monitor the integrity of HTHA vulnerable equipment! Due to the age of many ammonia plants, a lot of equipment may need to be replaced. For avoiding HTHA of new equipment, use the recommendations for fabrication of new equipment in the hydrogen service according API 941 and API 934A! Click here for more information

FIORDA – the Fertilizer Industry Operational Risks Database, is created for collecting and sharing process safety and reliability information among participating companies in the fertilizer industry.

How you can benefit from FIORDA?

AmmoniaKnowHow.com and UreaKnowHow.com (AKH & UKH) are an independent group of nitrogen fertilizer specialists with an impressive number of years experience in designing, maintaining and operating nitrogen fertilizer plants. Our mission is to improve the safety and performance of all nitrogen fertilizer plants worldwide.

We are specialized in ammonia, urea, methanol, nitric acid, UAN and NPK technologies covering process, mechanical, instrumentation and process safety disciplines. Our services include plant commissioning and start-up, operation and maintenance support, process safety optimisation, ammonia tank de-commissioning and inspection, plant revamp and turnaround support, project management consultancy and training services.

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UreaKnowHow.com now introduces a 3-Day UreaKnowHow Master Class. This 3-Day UreaKnowHow Master Class is a follow-up training of the UreaKnowHow.com 5-Day Urea Training for Managers, Engineers and Supervisors. With more than 850 participants in more than 20 sessions, the 5-Day Urea Training Program has been a big success, showing the industry's wish to continuously improve itself. The 3-Day UreaKnowHow Master Class composes of a set of Workshops of real-life critical topics, valid in any urea plant. Active participation and applying the know-how gained earlier are assuring you to Become a Real Urea Master!

Let me (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) know when you are interested and we will organise a location and timing. 

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AmmoniaKnowHow.com’s partner Fertilizer Industrial Services has recently been appointed by a European fertilizer company to implement the Operational Excellence (OE) within their Operational, Engineering and Maintenance departments. The project has started in June 2017 and for the first 12 months the focus is on designing the OE system including company standards, best industry practices and engineering guidelines.

What is Operational Excellence? Click here for more information

AMMO LASER Leak Detection System: The #1 Safety Measure with a Guaranteed Pay Back

Several Safety Risks threaten Urea High Pressure Equipment like high pressures, high temperatures, various kind of corrosion phenomena, crystallization risks, large volumes and release of ammonia in case of a leak.

A significant number of serious incidents with Urea High Pressure Equipment still do occur in our industry (for example already six in 2018 and 2019). And in 50% a failing leak detection system was one of the main causes.

The Risk Register for a 316L Urea Grade Reactor identifies totally 50+ safety risks of which 75% can be prevented by operating a proper leak detection system.

Plus please do realise the typical lifetime of the 316L Urea Grade protective layer of a urea reactor is 20-30 years. While the typical lifetime of a urea plant is 40-50 years. Thus every urea reactor will finally operate close to the end of lifetime conditions of the protective layer. Meaning that at a certain moment a leak in the protective layer is nearly unavoidable. 

The AMMO LASERLeak Detection System is the most reliable HP Equipment Leak Detection System for loose liners available in the market.

A passive leak detection system is in our view not acceptable anymore today; this is best illustrated with Incident 18-005.

AMMO LASER Leak Detection System: The #1 Safety Measure with a Guaranteed Pay Back Time

The AMMO LASER Leak Detection System has following features:

AmmoniaKnowHow.com and UreaKnowHow.com provide Engineering Support and Operational Expertise specifically to operators in the Nitrogen Fertiliser Industry. AmmoniaKnowHow.com and UreaKnowHow.com comprise a team of Ammonia and Urea specialists with experience in operation, project development, revamp solutions and mechanical completion of large scale fertilizer projects worldwide.

Our services include, but not limited to:

Serious incidents continue to take place in the nitrogen fertilizer industry. UreaKnowHow.com together with its Partner AmmoniaKnowHow.com start up a new initiative to improve the safety standards in ammonia and urea plants. Dedicated Safety and HSE Training Programs will discuss the specific safety and HSE aspects valid in ammonia and urea plants. Numerous safety incidents, which occurred in the past in ammonia and urea plants, form the basis of these training programs. The Lessons Learned will be discussed targeting a higher safety standard in our industry. For more information click here for Safety and HSE Training Programs in Urea Plants and for Safety Training Programs in Ammonia Plants. Also feel free to contact UreaKnowHow.com via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

High-pressure piping is often an area that receives almost no attention during the lifetime of a urea plant; there is no logical reason for this. Paying not enough attention or wrong inspection/repair procedures can lead to catastrophic incidents...

UreaKnowHow.com together with BHDT developed The BHDT “Zero Dead Volume“ High Pressure Sampling Valve, which makes taking samples from the High Pressure Synthesis section in a Urea Plant much more Safe, more Reliable and lot Easier. And is now available for all urea technologies. The solution will flash whereby ammonia gas releases. During sampling no gasses are allowed to escape in order to obtain a reliable and representative sample. The sample needs to be caught in a balloon in which it is dissolved in a pre-weighted amount of water. The sample flow needs to be controlled accurately in order that the sample has time to dissolve in the water and to avoid that the balloon will burst. The sampling valve and inlet line need to be pre-heated and flushed through to remove the old solution. Proper personal protection equipment is needed to avoid any risks. It is time to solve these safety hazards…

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KAPP Heat Transfer Engineers, specialists in the design of heat exchangers, together with UreaKnowHow.com developed THE KAPP CO2 CHILLER, which cools the feed CO2 temperature without using cold energy sources from the existing ammonia and urea plant and with a minimum pressure drop. The enclosed paper describes and evaluates three options for THE KAPP CO2 CHILLER. All three options lead to extreme short pay back times....

Our services include, but not limited to:

- Technical Safety and Risk Management,

- Process Safety Documentation compliance with EU and International regulators,

- Reliability, availability and maintainability studies,

- Revamp support for Ammonia and Urea technologies,

Yara invited UreaKnowHow.com to be present during a major turnaround of Yara Canada in Belle Plaine, Canada. UreaKnowHow.com provided consultancy services related to the replacement of some HP Urea Equipment items and the inspection and possible repair of equipment and piping. Before the turnaround UreaKnowHow.com visited the site to discuss in detail the relevant maintenance projects in the urea plant. During this first visit an extensive study was performed to look at how the high pressure equipment items could be replaced in the most efficient way...Click here for more details. Contact us for more information or our offer for support of your turnaround: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The OFF-SPEC UREA PRODUCT UPGRADER converts off-spec urea product (lumps, fines and dust) into a premium quality urea product, namely Urea Super Granules. Urea Super Granules are part of the Urea Deep Placement technology developed by the International Fertilizer Development Company (www.ifdc.org) in the US with the target to increase rice yields with reduced nitrogen-fertilizer application and reduced nitrogen losses.

Click here for more background information about Urea Super Granules

How to keep your urea plant in optimum shape ?

This Carbamate Crystallization Temperature Calculator has been the result of the co-operation between UreaKnowHow.com and Virtual Materials Group.

Statistical Process Control is a good way to check, but more-over control your product quality, and reduce the amount of complaints and overdosing of formaldehyde, and avoid caking and dust in the warehouse. Typically one wants to do quality control on the Size Guide Number (SGN) and Uniformity Index (UI), because these parameters determine how ones fluid bed granulation or prilling plant is running. One can also opt to apply Statistical Process Control on the load-out product, to enable a product certification and happy customers...More information

Baffle hammering is a widely occurring failure mechanism in heat exchangers. In urea plants baffle hammering has been experienced in various heat exchangers such as HP scrubbers, Low Pressure Carbamate Condensers and Kettle type carbamate condensers. By means of HTRI a specific vibration study can be performed to prove that indeed critical vibration  do occur under the current conditions and which measures are necessary to realize a vibration free design. UreaKnowHow.com has experience to perform these HTRI studies in co-operation with HTRI specialists. For more information, Download the PDF

UreaKnowHow.com has the know how and experience to support you with your new Grass Root Urea Plant or Urea Revamp Project. UreaKnowHow.com can support you in a wide range of services and activities during the complete project lifetime.

Vertical One Pass (VOP) heat exchangers are many times applied in urea plants. As the residence time in these heat exchangers is small, unwanted side reactions like biuret formation and hydrolysis of urea are limited. Some phenomena however limit or reduce the performance of these heat exchangers: Bad distribution of gas and liquid at the inlet and consequent fouling of the tubes. UreaKnowHow.com offers a very reliable and maintenance friendly solution to improve the performance of VOP Heat Exchangers. This solution have been proven since 2011 and increases the performance and reduces the fouling tendency in a medium and low pressure recirculation heater. The restriction orifices are very easy and quick to install and remove during a shut down. For more information, download the PDF

Energy costs have a significant impact on the production costs of the urea product. Older urea plants have to compete with large scale new plants however suffer typically from higher energy costs due to the applied older technologies and due to lower efficiencies of older machines. UreaKnowHow.com co-operates with a group of energy management specialists with totally more than 40 years experience in energy management and revamp projects to improve the energy performance figures of your urea plant and reduce the variable urea production costs. Step 1 of such a typical Energy Reduction Revamp project is a Quick Scan of the actual energy situation in your urea plant. 

Dusty urea product leads to many problems with clients, employees, transporters and farmers. Dusty urea product is typically caused by operation parameters of the evaporation section in the urea melt plant, operation parameters of the granulation or prilling section, storage conditions and logistic procedures. In most of these cases an end-of pipe solution is the most efficient and cost-effective solution to improve the product quality and produce premium-grade urea. The “Van Bommel Dedusting Technology” (VBDT) offers such a solution. For more information, download the PDF

Synthesis Pressure Safety Valves tend to pop up unexpectedly leading to safety risks and a forced shut down of the plant. UreaKnowHow.com has initiated a Benchmark Study about the experiences with these critical equipment items. Five urea plants covering all major process technologies have participated and answered a set of fifteen questions related to the design, operation and maintenance of these valves. Contact information of the participants plus an industry expert is included for further exchange of information. To summarise: A perfect opportunity to solve finally all your problems related to the Synthesis Pressure safety Valves.

Regularly UreaKnowHow.com organises various Training Programs: Complete Training Programs for any engineer, manager, supervisor and operator working in any kind of urea plant or more specific Maintenance Training Programs. These Training Programs can be Open at a central location, organised In-house at a certain urea plant or Half-open hosted by one urea plant while third parties are invited also to join.