Urea Capacity Expansion

This client sought to increase its urea capacity from 1,300 TPD to approximately 1,650 TPD to meet increasing market demand. This is due primarily to its ability to reduce NOX emissions in diesel engines while achieving a 4% to 7% increase in gas mileage. Because of the economic opportunities realized by increasing production capacity, C&I conducted FEL-1 conceptual phase through Detailed Design, Start-up and Commissioning.

To accurately model the process changes, our team created a benchmark simulation of the entire Urea Unit. Creating a Hysys model was a challenge and had to be rigorously tested. Due to the unique chemistry of the process, the urea and ammonium carbamate components had to be created and regressed binary interaction parameters for multicomponent mixtures had to be developed. Our model was validated against a test run, providing confidence in the simulation of future operation. The process team used creativity to address the need for supplemental compressed CO₂ gas feed by using liquid CO₂ to support the overall capacity increase.

The existing unit was congested, requiring finesse in siting equipment and routing piping. This is where our expertise in retrofit design combined with the 3D modeling tool and laser scan set us up for a successful project. We were able to involve stakeholders in a constructability review early in the design process to locate several new pieces of equipment in an existing structure.