Ion-Exchange Treatment of Effluent from Ammonium Nitrate Plants for Nitrogen and Water Recovery

Keywords: Ammonium nitrate, ion-exchange, Fertarex, waste water treatment, nitrogen fertiliser, water recovery.

For the last forty years ion-exchange has been used successfully for the recovery of ammonia (NH₃) and ammonium nitrate (NH₄NO₃) from the contaminated waste effluents discharged from ammonium nitrate plants. A special short cycle ion-exchange system regenerates the cation resin using 55-60% nitric acid (HNO₃) and the anion resin with 12-20% NH₃, recovering the discharged nitrogen products with an efficiency of more than 99.8%. These are recovered as a concentrated 18-25% NH₄NO₃ solution, while the water becomes high quality de-mineralised water. Due to the recycling of all products back to the process plant, a minimal or even zero level of this waste effluent is discharged to the environment. The ion-exchange process, as used in various fertiliser plants, has important economic advantages.

Nicolai Arion¹ and Guy Mommaerts²

¹ Arionex Wasseraufbereitung, Basel, Switzerland.

² Ion Exchange Services, Elora, Canada.

19 pages, 12 figures, 1 table, 19 references