Ammonia Stripping 3

[22854]

I work in a NH3 and urea producing plant.
We a a very important quantity of effluent water that is normally contaminated with ammonia and carbamate that exceeds the ammonia regulations for the effluent of the plant.

We do not have any effluent treatment plant. We only have several ponds to receive de water and then, after controlling the ammonia content we dilute with raw water to meet the limit value.

We are thinking to make a stripping of that water either with steam or air.

1) Any other ideas ?
2) I will appreciate comments (pros and cons) on both stripping methods.
3) How to calculate the required installations and make a budget.
4) Technologies or recommended vendors
5) Any other helpful information to start the evaluation will be very much appreciated.

Best regards to you all.

 

[spekuljak]

The better solutions are stripping with air or stripping with steam. The best of them depends of the ammonia conc. in water, among other variables, such as:
In case of air stripping, the installation could be made in plastics, but the gaseous effluent must be postreated,with an adsober bed or sending to flare,
In case of steam stripping, the ammonia could be recovery as ammonia solution.

See my paper "Air Stripping or Steam Stripping?" in the web page

http://www.sitingenieria.com.

For more, just ask.

Regards, Spekuljak.

 

[22854]

Thank you very much Spekuljak I will read your paper.
Any other source for designing the facilities or Engineering Vendors ?

 

[spekuljak]

I does not know your geographical place.

 

[ecowater]

Is a biological wastewater treatment option feasible in your area? If your lagoons were upgraded to handle the ammonia you may not have to go through the stripping.

There are biological/ecological systems available as retrofits to lagoons for nitrification and denitrification.

 

[hkmtx]

Have you considered treatment with bleach (NaOCl)? In the "Handbook of Chlorination", by GC White, the author talks about very similar processes used in the utility plants to remove organic / inorganic nitrogen from public water supplies - "breakpoint" chlorination. Simple ammonia is converted to molecular nitrogen, other organics will form chloroform - so depending on the organic content this may not be an option. One other downside, to this method is that there will be chloramine residuals - depending on chlorine dosages being applied. Depending on where your discharge goes, these downsides may out weigh the benefits.

 

[gkandy]

Steam stripping is the normal norm in urea plants. You can recover the contaminants with a bit of steam. The stripper is normally called Hydrolyser stripper. Any of the Urea technology suppliers / enviro suppliers in your area should be in position to advice on technology/equipments/ cost etc.

 

[aleximor]

In case you have not yet found a suitable outfit to design your stripper, the following should be able to help.

Stamicarbon BV (Geleen, Netherlands) - leading urea process (including condensate treatment) licensor
Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany) - Stamicarbon-licensed contractor with extensive experience
Urea Casale SA (Lugano, Switzerland) - specialist in urea plant retrofits and "revamps"
Siirtec-Nigi SpA (Milan, Italy) - ditto
Monsanto Envirochem (St Louis, USA) - current proprietor of the UTI urea technology portfolio, including a hydrolyser-stripper design.
KBR [Kellogg Brown & Root] (Houston, Texas) - leading ammonia plant contractor with condensate treatment technology.

Let me know if you would like communication details for any of these.

aleximor@tiscali.co.uk