Breakthrough in Urea Technology - Stamicarbon's new Urea 2000plusT process with pool reactor in operation at DSM complex at Geleen, the Netherlands

Stamicarbon, the licensing subsidiary of the Dutch chemicals and materials group DSM, has on several occasions informed the urea community about the advantages of its new, proprietary Urea 2000plusT technology. A variety of this technology employing a pool condenser was licensed to Kafco of Bangladesh and has given excellent performance since 1994. Recently, in March 1998, the pool reactor variant was successfully commissioned at DSM's production complex at Geleen, where it is now in commercial operation.

The newly built single-line urea plant with a capacity of 1150 mtpd replaces an older urea unit and feeds DSM's melamine plant on the same site. It has been built in combination with a new UAN facility that consumes surplus urea production.

Two years ago DSM showed its confidence in the pool reactor design by investing in this trailblazing technology. This confidence is now fully substantiated by the first weeks of operational experiences.

The advantages of the pool reactor are:

• significantly lower investment compared with any other type of urea plant.
• less equipment due to simplified design, giving higher reliability, very high on-stream times and lower maintenance.
• far easier operation than with any other urea synthesis process.

The process is based on the tried and tested, world-standard CO2 stripping process and consequently has stoichiometric ammonia and carbon dioxide consumption figures, has very low energy consumption, and complies with the highest environmental standards.

Like its predecessors, the Urea 2000plus
process uses simple and inexpensive materials of construction and yet is free from corrosion, another factor that makes for high reliability and low maintenance.