Nitrogen + Syngas 2021

Virtual Conference & Exhibition

1-3 March, 2021

CASALE latest technologies to

improve efficiency amd product
quality of urea plant
LEONARDO MARRONE
CASALE SA
Lugano, Switzerland

Coupling efficiency and product quality is nowadays the main goal pursued by any urea producer to
be leader in the market and at the same time fulfil the increasingly stringent sustainability requirements
These two words indeed encompass the key mandatory requirements of any technology development
roadmap: competitiveness, design for environment and care of the customer. With that in mind, CASALE
has recently invested a lot of forces for designing and developing innovative solutions aimed to improve
both the process efficiency and the product quality. In this regard most of the efforts have been spent
on the urea reactor as core of the entire production process and on the prilling finishing section as latest
production stage before dispatching the product to users. This paper presents and describes the
outcomes of this massive R&D programme which has brought to launch two new proprietary
technologies: the Casale’s urea reactor “Matrix High Efficiency Trays” - matrixHET and the innovative
prilling “Vibrating Skin Bucket”-VSB

1. INTRODUCTION
There are different kinds of processes currently utilized to produce urea. The main differentiator between them is the
way how the unconverted reactants resulting from the reactor are handled and in most of the cases, recycled back.
The recovery of those takes most of the energy consumption of the entire production process. In this regard the reactor
represents the core of process. Its efficiency in converting the reactants, i.e. CO2, into urea dictates the overall energy
consumption of the plant regardless the adopted technology. Improving the CO2 conversion of an existing reactor
means also provide room for capacity increase which in its turn leads to higher competitiveness and lower impact on
the environment.
From this basic observation, the need of maximizing the reactor yield at assigned inlet conditions, arises clearly.
Since the early nineties, Casale, together with Prof. Dente from Politecnico of Milano, has recognized the importance
of mass and heat transfer phenomena in the urea formation under the prevailing operating conditions of urea reactors.
Until then, these phenomena had been underestimated, or even neglected, with the consequence that most of the
urea reactors were not giving the best possible performances, as it was commonly thought at that time by most urea
plant designers.

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 L. Marrone

The outstanding outcome of this understanding was the design of the well-known Casale-Dente High Efficiency Trays
(HET). Since the first application in 1993, more than 100 set of these trays have been successful implemented all
over the world.
Nevertheless, Casale supported by prof. Dente has never stopped to study the behavior of the urea reactor to find
innovative solutions for improving its yield. Strengthened by the experience maturated over more than 25 years,
Casale and prof. Dente have recently conceived an innovative design of internals able to further enhance the mass
and heat transfer phenomena occurring in the urea reactors. The new Casale-Dente matrixHET embed such
innovative design.

As part of R&D programme for the design of grass-roots plant and the revamping of existing plants, Casale has recently
focused its effort in developing innovative technologies for the finishing section of Urea plant. Accordingly, Casale has
successfully completed a R&D project with the precious support of Donald Snyder (founder of Tuttle Prilling System)
for the development of an advanced vibrating prilling bucket, the so-called “Vibrating Skin Bucket - VSB”, which is now
available on the market.
In Casale’s VSB, a continuous axial vibration is superimposed on the conventional rotational movement. In comparison
with a traditional rotating bucket, this new design is able to increase plant production and improve the uniformity (size
and shape) of the urea prills. Furthermore, a reduction of fine particle content in the product as well as a decrease of
dust emission from the top of the prilling tower are achieved.
1. NEW CASALE-DENTE MATRIX HIGH EFFICIENCY TRAYS
1.1 Technical background
The new proprietary Casale-Dente matrixHET represent the latest upgrade of the well-known Casale-Dente HET.
The basics of this upgrade still lay on the chemical-physics describing the behaviour of the urea reactor. The urea
synthesis reactor is a vapor-liquid heterogeneous reaction system. All along the reactor both the vapor phase
(containing free CO2, NH3, some water and inerts) and the liquid phase (containing NH3, ammonium carbamate,
bicarbonate, urea and water) are present. The reactants are progressively transferred from the vapour to the liquid
phase, where CO2 reacts with NH3, producing carbamate and then urea and water with a continuous exchange of
CO2 and NH3 between the two phases.
Urea is produced into the liquid phase according to the following reversible main chemical reactions:
(1) 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2,𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙 + 2𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁3,𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙 ↔ 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁+ −
4 + 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁2 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2
exothermic – very fast
+ −
(2) 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁4 + 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁2 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2 ↔ 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁4 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁2 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2 ↔ 𝑈𝑈𝑈𝑈𝑈𝑈𝑈𝑈𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙 + 𝐻𝐻2 𝑂𝑂𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙
endothermic – slow
Since the reacting system is heterogeneous, the following vapor-liquid phase equilibria are also established at the
vapor-liquid interface:
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2,𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔 ↔ 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2,𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑞𝑞 ; 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁3,𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔 ↔ 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁3,𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙 ; 𝐻𝐻2 𝑂𝑂𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔𝑔 ↔ 𝐻𝐻2 𝑂𝑂𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙𝑙
In such heterogeneous reaction system (see Fig.1) three regions can be identified:
• the vapour present in the bubbles that can rise up the
reactor in columns or in intermittent swarms
• the liquid emulsion, which is the liquid region through
which the bubbles are flowing
• the clear liquid, which is the liquid region outside the
liquid emulsion

Fig.1: Phases inside the reactor

The global reaction rate of urea formation is therefore the “sum” of the following steps:
• mass transfer from the bulk of the bubble to the vapour-liquid interface (through the vapour-liquid
interface area)

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 CASALE latest technologies to improve efficiency amd product quality of urea plant

• formation of carbamate (and heat) at the vapour-liquid interface

• mass and heat transfer from the vapour-liquid interface to the bulk of the emulsion
• transfer from the bulk of the emulsion to the bulk of the clear liquid (through the emulsion-clear liquid
boundary)
• formation of urea from carbamate in both the clear liquid and emulsion

The key understanding of Casale and prof. Dente in the early nineties was to realize that the formation of urea is not
only controlled by the chemical kinetics and thermodynamics, but also by factors that affect the physical elementary
processes, i.e.:
• mass and heat transfer coefficients
• fluid-dynamics and flow patterns of the two phases
• interface areas between vapor and liquid and boundary areas between the emulsion and the clean liquid
• average distance between the bulk of the emulsion and the bulk of the clear liquid
• total recirculated flowrates

By applying these concepts, the Casale-Dente HET compared to the state of the art, have proven to provide better
contact patterns of the phases, reducing the path length of the eddies' streamlines into the emulsion (mixed phase of
bubble and liquid) and significantly increasing emulsion to clean liquid boundary surface.
Main features of Casale-Dente HET:
separate and distributed paths through the tray are provided. They guarantee a steady state flow of the two phases
and better approach an even uniform flow of the two phases throughout the whole reactor.
• These separated paths through the tray are chosen, so that a very high mixing efficiency between vapour
and liquid is obtained. Consequently, a very high mass and heat transport within the liquid phase is
realised.
• With an appropriate design, the diameter of the generated vapour bubbles is smaller than in any previous
design. By consequence, the interfacial surface, for mass and heat transfer, is increased.
• A much larger surface of exchange between emulsion and clean liquid is created.
• The quite shorter path length of recirculation streamlines into the emulsion phase significantly decreases
the transport resistances.

The trays are made up by several inverted U beams (see Fig.2) with large
perforations for liquid passage on the side walls, and small perforations for gas
passage on the top sections (see Fig. 3 and 4). With this unique design, very
small bubbles are generated, and by consequence, very high specific surface for
the mass and heat transfer is obtained. This advantage is combined with a very
high efficiency in the mixing between vapours and liquid.

Fig.2: HETworking principle

Fig.3: HET geometry

Fig.4: Detail of the single tile
The Casale-Dente high efficiency trays have proven to be a step ahead compared to any other type of tray available
on the market.

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 L. Marrone

1.2 Description of the new design

Although the undiscussed improvement provided by the standard Casale-Dente HET, accurate modelling of the urea
reactor pointed out that the mass transfer from the emulsion to the clean liquid is still the rate determining step of urea
formation in most of the cases. Therefore, the overall reaction rate of urea formation could be further enahnced by
improving this step of the process.
The new Casale-Dente matrixHET design brings this improvement. Doubling the actual emulsion-clean liquid
boundary surface, this new design dramatically increases the mass transfer between the emulsion and the clean liquid
therefore enhancing the overall reaction rate.
The concept of the new design is as simple as effective: compared to the standard HET where the inverted U beams
are distributed along only one-dimension 1D, the new geometry replicates the same U structure also in the transversal
direction so realizing a 2D symmetrical configuration (see Fig.5).

Fig.5: New CASALE-DENTE matrixHET

Each tray is indeed formed by an array of individual perforated tiles wherein each tile comprises four side walls and a
top face, the latter being perforated to allow the passage of gas while the side walls are perforated to allow the passage
of the liquid. The tiles are distributed over the tray with a two-dimensional pattern and adjacent tiles are separated by
gaps.
Each tile is substantially a prismatic structure projected upwards, with 4 side walls and a top face. It can also be
regarded as a box with a full bottom aperture to collect the rising mixture, and perforated faces with apertures (e.g.
holes) specifically designed for the liquid or for the gas.
Thanks to this innovative geometry the boundary surface between the emulsion and the clean liquid is substantially
doubled leading to a double mass transfer between the two phases. In terms of overall CO2 conversion at reactor
outlet, such improvement concretizes in different ways depending on the application.
• New reactor: reduction of the volume getting the same CO2 conversion
• Existing reactor operating close to the thermodynamic equilibrium: provision of room for increasing the
capacity without penalizing the CO2 conversion
• Existing reactor operating far from the thermodynamic equilibrium: compared to the standard Casale-Dente
HET up to 1% of CO2 conversion increase can be achieved with consequent energy saving as MP steam.

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 CASALE latest technologies to improve efficiency amd product quality of urea plant

2. THE NEW CASALE’S VIBRATING SKIN BUCKET - VSB

Casale’s Vibrating Skin Bucket (see Fig.6) is the most advanced technology for urea prilling bucket on the market.
The key features are:
• Suitable for prilling tower with diameter up to 28 m
• Uniform prill size distribution
• Low dust emission
• Low prill temperature
• Wide rangeability of operating conditions
The technology has been developed in collaboration with Donald Snyder, founder of Tuttle Prilling Systems. The
programme led, firstly, to a unique prilling bucket design and, secondly, to the execution of experimental tests at pilot
scale to validate the theoretical calculations.
The testing activities provided very promising results, so Casale decided to move forward and prove this technology
on industrial scale. Nowadays, Casale has successfully completed the first industrial application and the Vibrating Skin
Bucket technology is available on the market for both small and large capacity urea plants. Casale’s VSB is suitable
for prilling tower diameter up to 28 m.

Fig. 6 – First industrial application of the Vibrating Skin Bucket.

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 L. Marrone

2.1 Description of the technology

The Vibrating Skin Bucket rotates on the vertical axis like a conventional prilling bucket. Moreover, thanks to the
innovative (patented) design, the external conical wall of the bucket vibrates along the vertical direction, while the
liquid contained inside. Moreover, thanks to the innovative (patented) design, the external conical wall of the bucket
vibrates along the vertical direction, while the liquid contained inside the bucket is kept substantially free of said
vibration. Such vibration is induced by an electronic actuator installed above the prilling bucket. Figure 7 shows the
main components of the bucket.

Fig. 7 – 3D model of Vibropriller – orange and purple: rotating plus vibrating part, red: static part - liquid melt
distributor.

Casale’s VSB operating mechanism is based on Rayleigh’s principle of controlled breakup of liquid jets, which
guarantees the generation of liquid droplets with predictable diameter.
Thanks to its peculiar ridged shape and optimized hole size distribution, the “vibrating skin” is specifically designed to
enhance the uniformity of the generated droplets and the degree of occupancy of the prilling tower cross area.
In comparison with a conventional rotating bucket, the vibrating skin bucket configuration makes possible to increase
plant production as well as improve the uniformity (size and shape) of the urea prills. Moreover, a reduction of the fine
particle content in the product and a decrease of the amount of dust emitted from the top of the prilling tower are
obtained.
The following table (see Fig. 8) shows the product size distribution achieved by the first industrial application of Casale
VSB’s compared to what was obtained with the conventional bucket.
Standard
Casale's VSB
rotating bucket
Load 100% 50÷75% 75÷100% 100÷120%
<1.25 mm 3.0% 1.8% 1.5% 1.6%
1.24÷1.5 mm 13.0% 6.4% 4.0% 3.9%
1.5÷2 mm 54.0% 73.5% 73.2% 74.0%
2÷4.5 mm 30.3% 18.3% 21.3% 20.5%
Fig. 8 – Prills size distribution

Differently from other vipropriller technologies currently available on the market, in Casale’s VSB the vibration is
transferred only to the external wall of the bucket and not to the liquid inside. Therefore, a better control of liquid droplet
generation can be achieved. Figure 9 here below, depicts the general assembly of this technology.

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 CASALE latest technologies to improve efficiency amd product quality of urea plant

Fig. 9 – VSB general assembly: mechanical drawing and 3D model

The main components of Casale’s VSB are:

Vibrating bucket. The complete bucket (not including the urea melt distributor) rotates on its axis, driven by the electric
motor. The electronic actuator, installed above the prilling bucket, transmits the vibration to the bottom cover and
consequently to the conical perforated wall of the bucket. The bucket is fed with urea melt through a pipe distributor.
Shaft. The driver shaft has a hollow-tube design so that the electronic actuator can be installed inside of it.
Electronic actuator. The electronic actuator, located inside the rotating shaft, allows to transmit the vibration movement
to the external skin of the bucket. A sinusoidal current of controlled frequency and voltage must be used for this
purpose. The frequency of the vibration generated by the actuator is the same of the supplied current, while the
amplitude is proportional to the voltage.
2.1.1 VSB control system
The rotation speed of the bucket is controlled by the inverter installed on the electric motor.
The vibration, in terms of frequency and displacement, is controlled by means of a signal generator (powered at 220
Vac) able to regulate the frequency and the voltage of the signal supplied the electronic actuator. This signal generator
can be operated manually from a local panel or integrated in the DCS system
Casale has indeed developed a patented control system for the VSB (see Fig.10), which can be easily integrated with
the existing DCS and supplied as an option

Fig. 10 – Proprietary control system for remote control of VSB

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 L. Marrone

This system allows the remote and automatic control of the vibration in terms of frequency and amplitude, by
measuring the urea melt flow rate fed to the bucket itself. Therefore, a simple function implemented in the DCS
automatically adjusts both the frequency and the amplitude according to the plant load, without the need of any manual
input. Obviously, also the rotating speed of the bucket is automatically controlled from DCS, in accordance to the urea
melt feed flow.
2.2 Performances
The performances of the Casale’s Vibrating Skin Bucket are:
• Product size distribution with uniformity index improved by 20%:
The VSB can be specifically designed to meet the wished average prill diameter.
• Reduction of dust emission by 25%.
• Steam saving due to reduction of the urea solution recycle from the scrubbing.
• Remarkable reduction of prill temperature.
• Excellent quality of final product between 50%÷120% of urea plant load.
3. CONCLUSIONS
New solutions in CASALE Urea Technology such as the CASALE-DENTE matrixHET and the new Vibrating Skin
Bucket are being proposed to further strengthen plant efficiency and providing the final users with the best product
quality.
Since their first installation in 1993, the Casale-Dente HET have been in operation in more than 100 reactors having
capacities ranging from 250 to 3000 MTD. Such wide success has allowed CASALE to gather over the time a lot of
expertise in this field. The new Casale-Dente matrixHET embed and valorise this knowledge.
With the precious support of Donald Snyder (founder of Tuttle Prilling System) the first Casale’s Vibrating Skin Bucket
has been successfully tested and operated at the industrial scale. The outstanding results obtained in terms of uniform
size distribution, low dust emissions, low temperature and wide rangeability of operating conditions make the Casale’s
VSB the most advanced technology for urea prilling bucket on the market.

8 Nitrogen + Syngas 2021 Virtual Conference & Exhibition (1-3 March 2021)