Published February 1984
The older high pressure technology for ammonia developed in the sixties and improved for energy recovery during the mid and late seventies is now being superceded by a new generation of low pressure, high energy efficient processes. Among the companies who either have devel-oped such processes or have plants under construction based on these low pressure/low energy processes are Haldor Tops�e, M. W. Kellogg, and ICI. In this review we examine the ICI low pressure ammonia process which is designated as their "AMV" process. We describe and compare the economics and the essential design features of this process with those of the high pressure technology typical of plants built during the mid/late seventies. The new process has a natural gas energy consumption (higher heating value basis) of about 27.5 million Btu/short ton of NH3 (compared with about 34 million Btu in the older plants) and requires a capital investment about 15% less than the high pressure process. As such it represents a significant advance in ammonia technology.
