Urea production in fertiliser production

Urea – one of the most manufactured chemicals – is a widely used fertiliser because of its high nitrogen content. Urea is, however, also used as an AdBlue additive and as a basic substance for the chemical industry in the manufacture of urea resins for adhesives, impregnation agents and insulants. Nowadays, urea is mainly industrially manufactured from ammonia and carbon dioxide. In a high-pressure reactor these react to ammonium carbamate, which slowly breaks down as an intermediate product into urea and water in the appropriate conditions. Two thirds of the carbon dioxide which is captured beforehand during hydrogen production is thus consumed in the production of urea. Process variants differ in how the ammonium carbamate is broken down, the removal and recovery of carbon dioxide and ammonia as well as how the urea is processed. One thing all the modern industrial processes have in common is that the excess gases are fed back into the reactor by way of stripping processes. Lastly, the urea solution is concentrated in a downdraught vaporisersuited.

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