Spotlight
With global food consumption on an upward trend, the market for phosphorus fertilizers could grow well over 5 % per year. Image for illustration only.
phosphate fertilizer production. A Crane brochure for example indicates solutions for common valve problems experienced in the WPA process, which include abrasion, corrosion, scaling, valve jams, downstream leakage, external emissions and cleaning / flushing issues. Crane’ s scope of delivery includes XOMOX sleeved plug valves, Saunders diaphragm valves and XOMOX high performance butterfly valves for plant areas such as attack / filtration, acid concentration( evaporation), gas treatment, and recycle water supply system. GEMÜ too has a very informative brochure that outlines phosphate extraction. In terms of flow control they highlight two challenges: firstly, the need to handle mineral acids, requiring special care in the choice of construction material and / or internal linings and coatings; secondly, the handling of solids, where again rubber linings can prevent equipment damage. Providing solutions, they suggest their rubber lined butterfly valves, full bore diaphragm valves, butterfly valves with PFA encapsulated discs as well as PFA lined weir type valves amongst others. Outlining the WPA production method, Diaval too state the triple challenge of contending with phosphate ore, highly corrosive chemicals and impurities such as fluorides; the latter ruling out the use of glass lined reaction vessels and valves. Diaphragm valves can be used to solve many valve problems, they state. Useful linings include isobutylene, seen as an economical choice that offers resistance to the phosphoric acid and fluorine derivatives. In more critical areas, austenitic stainless steels deliver low corrosion rates of between 0.03 and 2.0 mm / year whilst fluorocarbon linings can also be considered.
Case studies
Several valve companies also provide interesting case studies and recommendations. For example, the Orbinox website gives details of knife-gate valves fitted to so-called‘ attack tanks’ in a large-scale phosphate fertilizer complex. Challenges for the valves included the very aggressive media( phosphoric acid slurry, 22-28 % acid, solids up to 35 % and a normal temperature of 80 ° C) as well as the very low opening / closing cycles, blocking problems and sleeve wear. Orbinox’ s solution was their WG knife-gate valve, which is equipped with metal reinforced rubber sleeves. At the time the case study was written, the valves had delivered‘ extraordinary performance’ for close on three years.
Ma’ aden’ s investments
The original press release that sparked Valve World’ s interest concerned the
signing of three construction agreements worth over USD 922 million by Saudi Arabian Mining( Ma’ aden) for its third phosphate fertilizer project. The deals include a USD 363 million contract with China based Sinopec Nanjing Engineering & Construction for acid production units and related infrastructure. A USD 234 million agreement has been reached with Turkey’ s Tekfen Construction for construction of a beneficiation plant. And finally, a USD 325 million contract is in place with the China National Chemical Engineering Company for general construction works. Ma’ aden first announced its third project for manufacturing phosphate fertilizers back in 2016, estimating the project’ s total cost at USD 6.4 billion. The complex is set to increase the company’ s annual production capacity by 50 % to 9 million tonnes. In October 2018, Ma’ aden signed a USD 892 million engineering, procurement, and construction agreement with a global consortium to build the first of several plants believed to fall under this project, namely an ammonia plant with 1.1 million tons per annum capacity.
References( 1) https:// www. marketresearchfuture. com / reports / phosphate-fertilizer-market-11682( 2) https:// www. sciencedirect. com / science / article / pii / S0264127523001545
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