Process to enhance urea with sulfur successful

Shell and Uhde Fertilizer Technologies (UFT), part of thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions are in a partnership that integrates UFT’s fluid bed granulation technology with Shell’s Urea-ES fertilizer technology.
 

This announcement comes after the two companies successfully granulated Shell-developed Urea-ES emulsion in UFT’s fluid bed granulation pilot plant in Leuna, Germany— with the goal of sulfur-enhanced urea to be widely available globally and the U.S.
 

Urea-ES technology provides sulfur nutrient to soils by incorporating elemental sulfur into the world’s most commonly used fertilizer, urea. Combining the two company’s technologies will enable the largest urea plants in the world to produce granulated sulfur-containing urea.
 

“Fertilizer producers had been asking us about incorporating sulfur into their urea for a long time,” said Matthias Potthoff, director of Uhde Fertilizer Technologies. “From the first discussions with Shell Thiogro about a partnership to granulate the product of their sulfur-enhanced urea technology, it was clear this would be a win-win relationship.”
 

UFT’s urea granulation expertise and Shell’s sulfur knowhow complement each other perfectly, according to the two companies. “We are pleased to see a positive outcome from this partnership. We successfully granulated several formulations of Urea-ES in UFT’s pilot plant,” said Rafael Garcia, global technology manager for Shell Thiogro technologies.
 

The original Urea-ES technology followed in the footsteps of Shell Thiogro phosphates technologies, which have enabled fertilizer producers to safely incorporate micron-sized particles of elemental sulfur and other nutrients into some of the most widely used phosphate fertilizers, including MAP, DAP, TSP and NPKs.
 

Shell’s Thiogro sulfur-enhanced phosphate fertilizer technologies have been licensed and installed in fertilizer plants in Asia, North America and Australia, and have been underway in other regions.