f
PRODUCTION
1 S , _
îvnow-riow for $531 eue G r a c e teams up with Pechins-y to give wou!cS-foe urea producers benefit of its experience
JTOTEXTIAL
urea producers
can
now
look at the Pechinev process w iili rekindled interest. Something n e w h a s been added—it is t h e Peehiney-Grace process that would-be licensees can consider in their expansion plans. Behind this unusual hands-acrossthe-sea joint arrangement is \V. R. Grace's four \ ears of operating experience with the process developed b y Pechinev in France. Foster Wheeler, exclusive agent for t h e process, will continue to engineer and build plants, as before. But now, producers can buy all of Ci race's process improvements as part of the package. In addition, Grace will help Foster Wheeler design new plants. And licensees, if they want, can make a separate deal to train their operating crews at Grace's Memphis plant and get Grace engineers to help with start-up operations. In return, G r a c e hopes t o get back at least part of t h e money it spent in working out process kinks. Pechinev and Grace will share the royalties on all n e w plants
built anywhere in the free world. The pri>c_~ess hivuh c d ib basically t h e same a.s ti~nat developed by Pechinev for producing urea from a m m o n i a a n d carbon dioxiide, using a neutral oil slurry to recycle unconverted r a w materials. Ammoiiiuira carbamate n o t converted to urea, in the process autoclave is d é co iriposed lhack t o ammonia a n d carbon dioxide. TThese, in turn, are recombined t o form carbamate-oil slurry in a reactor and pumped back to t h e autoclave for reprocessing. • Chong^s M a d e . Grace engineers have learned a lot about the process during the past four years of full-scale operation. Some major i m p r o v e m e n t s and simplifications result. T h e urea unit is parft of a $20 million p l a n t just north of YILemphis that marked Grace's entry into U. S. chemical production; other units there include a synthesis gas plant and a Casale ammonia plant. T h e armmoaiia operation went o n stream in late 1934 without a hitch. But, Girace a d m i t s , "all w a s not
UREA COPIVERTSR Î N S T A L L Ë D .
composer are part of Grace's plant in Mempfiis. Converter w a s erected b y using its supporting structure rather t h a n coiwe-ntionai g i n pole o r crane. Plant operates above rated annual capacity a n d at.t yields close t o theoretical 38
C&EN
MARCH
3 0, 1959
s e r e n e in t h e urea section/" Scaling* u p Pechmey*s original one ton-a-day u n i t to Gi îce's 150-ton operation c a u s e d proûieins. A t e a m of vj»rùœ engineers a n d chemists attacked t h e p l a n t as an engineering research p r o j e c t . During t h e first c*oupîe of y e a r s t h e v virnribfied
