Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Fermentation processes – Of farinaceous cereal or cereal material
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-05
2004-03-23
Sayala, Chhaya (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Fermentation processes
Of farinaceous cereal or cereal material
C426S032000, C426S034000, C426S035000, C426S044000, C426S054000, C426S064000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06709685
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to a process for the preparation of compound fertilizer granules by using solid granulation.
The term “compound fertilizer” is defined and used with several different meanings; it contains at least two of the plant nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Compound fertilizers are produced chemically or by blending. They shall be in the form of granules, pellets, prills, or crystals and shall be free-flowing.
Compound fertilizers are manufactured and frequently used because they are convenient to produce, transport store and apply and because they fulfil local or regional nutrient requirements, especially basal nutrient needs well. In addition to containing various ratios of the primary nutrients (N+P
2
O
5
+K
2
), the compound fertilizers may contain certain secondary and micronutrients specific to the crop needs in particular agroclimatic regions.
Granulated fertilizers have several advantages over powders, particularly in decreasing the quantity of dust, improving uniformity of flow when fertilizers are applied and segregation when they are blended.
In classifying the granulation methods, the physical properties of the materials to be granulated will be used. According to the density of the materials the following three groups may be distinguished: granulation of solids, granulation of slurries or of melts and granulation of fluids simultaneously with the reaction by which the product is formed.
Basic processes for manufacturing compound fertilizers are: Steam/water granulation, Chemical granulation or complex or slurry granulation, Drop forming or prilling, Compaction granulation and Dry mixing or blending.
The principal mechanisms responsible for initial fertilizer granule formation and subsequent growth are agglomeration and accretion. The known and widely applied compound fertilizer granulation methods are well reported for example in “Fertilizer Manual”, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998, p. 434-451 and “Studies of Granulation of Compound Fertilizers Containing Urea: A Literature Review”, G. C. Hicks, National Fertilizer Development Center; Bull Y-108, 15 pp., 1976.
Accretion is a process in which layer upon layer of a fluid material is applied to a solid particle causing it to grow in size; for example slurry-type granulation processes used to produce DAP, MAP, TSP, and some nitrophosphate compounds are accretion-type of granulation processes.
Agglomeration or granulation of solid particles is a classical method to granulate fertilizers, for example NPK products. In most agglomeration-type NPK formulations, 50-75% of the raw materials are fed as solid particles. The (premixed) raw materials are fed to a granulator where agglomeration is initiated. In the granulator steam and/or water or other liquid is added to provide sufficient liquid to enhance granulation. In same processes a small amount ammonia may also be added to promote granulation and improve product quality by increasing the CHR (critical relative humidity) and decreasing the acidity. The solid particles are assembled and joint into granules by a combination of mechanical interlocking and cementing.
A number of industrial scale processes to manufacture compound fertilizers are developed and applied. In the steam/water granulation process steam and/or water or scubber liquid is added into the granulator to provide sufficient liquid phase and plasticity to cause the dry raw materials to agglomerate into the product-size granules required.
The use of urea as a N-source for fertilizers of the different types and grades has established. Solid urea with quite high biuret content (0,8-2,0 wt-%) is mainly used for direct application to the soil and weak aqueous urea solutions with low biuret (max 0,3 wt-%) are used as foliage sprays.
The use of urea has also established in the manufacture of (granular) compound fertilizers based on for example superphosphate or ammonium phosphate.
The conventional wet granulation is not a suitable method for producing formulations containing urea, particularly when potassium chloride is also present, because the product is very hygroscopic and therefore difficult and expensive to dry.
In the chemical granulation beside a great amount of solid raw materials, water, steam, scrubber liquid, and/or ammonia and acid are fed to the granulator; the granules are formed mostly by agglomeration but in some processes granule formation may occur by accretion, too.
Drop formation or prilling, compaction granulation, dry mixing or blending, etc. are also applied quite widely to produce different granular fertilizer formulations.
Because some water or moisture is always present in most traditional granulation processes, drying is an obligatory, difficult and expensive stage of the processes and cause the need of a separate dryer construction. To solve problems of granulation, product quality and drying different fertilizer grade-dependent processes are development.
A granulation process is described by Doshi, S. R. in the article “Fusion blend”, Fertilizer Research vol. 30(1): p.87-97, 1991. Water (or steam) has been used to agglomerate solids either in powder, prilled or granulated form but no other liquids such as ammonia, phosphoric acid, or nitric acid are involved in the described process; still drying is essential.
Some water or moisture is always included in the process. The process is temperature and material moisture-related. For example, for the most agglomeration-type NPK fertilizers a liquid phase of about 300 kg/t of product is shown to be optimal.
Patent publication GB 1,189,398 (Sumitomo) discloses a process for producing a NK fertilizer which process comprises spraying a liquid mixture of urea, potassium chloride, gypsum and 1-10% by weight of water onto the solid material in a granulator. No drying is used. However, the amount of water added into the process is high enough to keep urea in dissolved state and the final product has a quite great water content of 1-2% by weight.
Patent publication U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,750 (TVA) discloses a process for the production of fertilizers from phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid, anhydrous ammonia and urea where a specially designed pipe-cross reactor is used to produce a homogenous melt or slurry of low moisture content from phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid and anhydrous ammonia. The pipe-cross reactor eliminates the need for a preneutralizer and in addition, because of the low melt or slurry moisture content, the dryer is eliminated. The neutralization reaction heat is drying the material in the pipe-cross reactor.
Because of the water/moisture content of the raw materials and products, process and product quality problems, like increased hygroscopicity and plasticity, will often occur when fertilizers are granulated by using steam/water and chemical granulation processes; particularly when, for example SSP, TSP and/or urea is present in the product. The hygroscopicity and plasticity complicate drying, screening and crushing operations, and furthermore, the storage properties of those compound fertilizers are often inferior to those of fertilizers that do not contain these substances.
The present invention is developed to solve the granulation, product quality, and storage etc. problems in manufacturing of compound fertilizers. The present invention relates to a process for the preparation of compound fertilizers such as NPK, NK etc., where solid raw materials are mixed in a mixer and fed to a granulator, whereto hot air is also fed. The raw materials are granulated without the aid of water or any other liquid such as ammonia, phosphoric acid or sulfuric acid. Thus, the granulation is a true solid granulation process. Because water or any other liquid is not added, there is no need for drying the granulated product. Further more the physical quality of the product is good, too.
Particularly, the process of the present invention has great advantages to the known granulation methods which require higher temperatures at the drying phase. Particularly, controlling of the humidity and drying temperature is
Poukari Juhani
van Brempt Arthur
Kemira Agro Oy
Rothwell Figg Ernst & Manbeck P.C.
Sayala Chhaya
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