Development & Operation of the Leading Concept Ammonia (LCA) Technology

Keywords: Ammonia, Energy saving, Environmental performance.

CONCLUSIONS:

The Leading Concept Ammonia (LCA) process has been successfully demonstrated and commercially proven at ICI Fertilizer’s factory at Severnside near Bristol.

ICI’s fertiliser and chemical operations at Severnside have been successfully based upon the LCA plants since the completion of commissioning in October 1988.

Problems associated with the development of this new technology have been resolved and solutions implemented.

The ability to provide LCA technology as a fast track project, with short construction and commissioning times, has been confirmed.

The inherent operator benefits of fast and efficient start up coupled with simple and easy operation have been confirmed.

The capital and energy efficiencies achieved for these two small/medium scale plants are comparable to large world scale units.

The environmental performance of the plants is significantly better than conventional synthesis gas based technology.

The plant experience gained at Severnside was a necessary part of consolidating and utilising Gas Heated Reformer technology in ammonia and other synthesis gas generation plant designs.

The further development of this advanced technology to the production of synthesis gas for ammonia, methanol and hydrogen manufacture is well advanced.

K J Elkins, A J Gow, D Kitchen and A Pinto, ICI Katalco, PO Box 1, Billingham, Cleveland, UK.

32 pages, 15 figures, 1 table, 6 references.