INORGANIC

CHEMISTRY 2
UREA
CHE 212

LECT. 4
Dr. Reham El-Araby
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 WHAT IS A FERTILISER?
• A fertilizer is any material of natural or synthetic
origin that is applied to soils or to plant tissues (usually
leaves) to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to
the growth of plants.
• Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, or NPK, are
the “Big 3” primary nutrients in commercial
fertilizers.
• Each of these fundamental nutrients plays a key role
in plant nutrition. 2
Nitrogen
• Helps in making the proteins.
• Helps in producing new tissues.
• Its deficiency also causes yellowing of leaves.
• Nitrogen is considered to be the most important
nutrient, and plants absorb more nitrogen than
any other element.

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Plant Nutrients

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 WHAT IS A FERTILISER?
• Nitrogen fertilizers represent a major industry worldwide
accounting for nearly 100 million tons of various products
per year.
• Nitrogen fertilizers include many types of liquid and solid
products, among which the most common ones are
ammonia, ammonium nitrate, and urea.

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Urea also known as carbamide or
carbonyl diamide

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 Urea Fertilizer-The King of Fertilizers
Urea fertilizer is the most important
nitrogenous fertilizer.
• It has high nitrogen content about 46 %.
• It can adapt to almost all the land.
• It is widely used in the agriculture sector
both as a fertilizer and animal feed
additive.
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 Urea Fertilizer
Advantages of Urea Fertilizer:
✓ Highest nitrogen content.
✓ The cost of production of urea is relatively low.
✓ Not subject to fire or explosion hazards, so there is no risk
in the storage of urea.
✓ Wide application, can be used for all types of crops and
soils and has no harm the soil.
✓ Urea manufacturing releases few pollutants to the
environment. 8
 Urea Fertilizer
Disadvantages of Urea Fertilizer:

➢ Very soluble in water and hygroscopic water, and requires

better packaging quality.
➢ Not as stable as other solid nitrogenous fertilizers,
decomposes even at room temperatures that results in serious
loss.
➢ If urea contains impurities more than 2 %, it cannot be used
as a fertilizer, since the impurities are toxic to certain crops,
particularly citrus.
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 Urea Production
Urea production is based on two main equilibrium
reactions. (Bazarov Reactions)

1. Formation of ammonium carbamate.

2. Dehydration of ammonium carbamate to produce molten
urea.

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The urea manufacturing process
is designed to maximize these
reactions while inhibiting
biuret formation

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 Urea Production
Biuret Formation:

• Two moles of urea are converted into one mole of biuret

and one mole of NH3 by heating.

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 Urea Production
Biuret Formation:
• This reaction is undesirable.
Why?
• It lowers the yield of urea,
• Biuret is injurious (harmful) to germinating seeds and trees.
• Biuret burns the leaves of plants.
➢ This means that urea which contains high levels of biuret
is unsuitable for use as a fertilizer.
➢ The biuret content in fertilizer grade urea on the world
market is required to be below 1.0%. 13
 Urea Production
Biuret Formation:

• Biuret forms almost everywhere in urea production steps.

The following conditions are favorable for biuret
formation:
• High residence times.
• High temperature.
• Low amount of water.
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 Urea Production
• Urea is manufactured by reacting (NH3) ammonia and
(CO2) carbon dioxide in an autoclave reactor to
form (NH2COONH4 ) ammonium carbamate.

• The operating temperature is 180oC and 200 atm

pressure, ammonia is maintained in excess to shift the
equilibrium towards urea formation. 15
 Urea Production

• Reaction 1 is fast and exothermic and essentially goes to

completion under the reaction conditions used industrially.
• Reaction 2 is slower and endothermic and does not go to
completion.
• The conversion (on a CO2basis) is usually in the order of 50-80%.
• The conversion increases with increasing temperature and
NH3/CO2ratio .
• The conversion decreases with increasingH2O/CO2ratio. 16
Urea Production

Schematic
representation
of
urea synthesis

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 Urea Production
Molten urea

150 atm
80%
205 OC urea
45%
urea

180- 200 atm

180-200 OC
65% urea

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 Urea Production
1. Ammonia Pumping :
Liquid ammonia is pumped from the multistage pump which
maintain the reaction pressure in the vertical stainless steel
vessel.
2. Carbon Dioxide Compression:
Ammonia plant directly boost the carbon dioxide from the
compression section as it readily form at the CO2 section of
ammonia production plant.
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 Urea Production
Molten urea

150 atm
80%
205 OC urea
45%
urea

180- 200 atm

180-200 OC
65% urea

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 Urea Production

3. Urea Synthesis Tower:

• A mixture of compressed CO2 and NH3 ammonia at 200
atm is reacted to form ammonium carbamate.

• This is an exothermic reaction, and heat is recovered by a

boiler which produces steam.

• The first reactor achieves about 80% conversion of the

carbon dioxide to urea and the liquid is then purified.
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 Urea Production

3. Urea Synthesis Tower:

• The tower lined with film of oxide materials to protect
from corrosion.
• Catalyst bed is placed in the inner side of the autoclave
reactor structure (tower) and 180- 200 atm pressure at
temperature about 180-200 OC is maintained.
• Flow of molten urea mixture is removed from the top of
the tower. 22
 Urea Production
Molten urea

150 atm
80%
205 OC urea
45%
urea

180- 200 atm

180-200 OC
65% urea

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 Urea Production
4. Distillation Tower :

• The mixture from the previous stage is distilled to remove

excess ammonia.

• Conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) to urea is

approximately 60% at a pressure of 150 bar.

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 Urea Production
Molten urea

150 atm
80%
45% 205 OC urea
urea

180- 200 atm

180-200 OC
65% urea

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 Urea Production

4. Flash Drum:

• The high pressure slurry is flashed to 1 atm pressure.

• Decomposed ammonia carbamated salts are removed and

recycled.

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 Urea Production
Molten urea

150 atm
80%
45% 205 OC urea
urea

180- 200 atm

180-200 OC
65% urea

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 Urea Production

5. Vacuum Evaporator:

• The solution is fed to vacuum evaporator for

concentrating the slurry.

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 Urea Production
Concentration

• The urea solution is heated under

vacuum, which evaporates off some of
the water, increasing the urea
concentration from 80% w/w to 99%
w/w.

• In the evaporation stage molten urea

(99% w/w) is produced at 140oC.
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 Urea Production
Molten urea

150 atm
80%
45% 205 OC urea
urea

180- 200 atm

180-200 OC
65% urea

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 Urea Production
6. Prilling Tower:

• It is dryer where the molten slurry of urea is passed from

top of the tower and sprinkles the slurry and air is passed
from the bottom.

• All the moisture is removed as the urea form into granules

during it journey to the bottom of the tower.

• This granules are sent by conveyor to the bagging section.

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 Urea Production
Granulation
• All dust and air from the granulator is
removed by a fan into a dust scrubber,
which removes the urea with a water
solution then discharges the air to the
atmosphere.

• The final product is cooled in air, weighed

and conveyed to bulk storage ready for sale.
• Urea is sold for fertilizer as 2 - 4 mm
diameter granules. 32
 Urea Production
Molten urea

150 atm
80%
45% 205 OC urea
urea

180- 200 atm

180-200 OC
65% urea

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 Urea Production Technical Points
• The design of commercial processes has involved the
consideration of:
• How to separate the urea from the other constituents.
• Recover excess NH3 and decompose the carbamate for
recycle.
• Developing materials to withstand the corrosive carbamate
solution.
• Optimize the heat and energy balances. 34
 Urea Production
Purification
• The unconsumed reactants are removed in three stages.
1-The pressure is reduced.
2-The solution is heated, which causes the ammonium
carbamate to decompose to ammonia and carbon dioxide:
3- The unconsumed reactants are absorbed into a water
solution which is recycled. Then,

The excess ammonia is purified and used as feedstock to the

primary reactor. 35
 Urea Production
Purification

• The major impurities in the product mixture are water

from the urea production reaction and unconsumed
reactants (ammonia, carbon dioxide and ammonium
carbamate).

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