OPTIMIZATION OF AN NP-FERTILIZER PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

Ammonium nitrate is the most common and useful nitrogen fertilizer globally, and its demand has decreased significantly due to its fire and explosion hazard. For the agricultural industry, compound fertilizers are most preferable. So, optimized technology’s development is an urgent task. This study aimed to develop NP-fertilizers technology based on the solution mixture of the evaporation’s first stage of the current production of ammonium nitrate and ground phosphate rock to obtain the target product with improved consumer and agrochemical properties. It was established optimal operating parameters of the technology for specific consumption of ammonium nitrate and ground phosphate rock. The results showed the ratio regulation of nutrient elements N/P2O5 in fertilizer formulations as 23/5%; 21/6%; 19/7%; 13/10%, and 11/11%. The method of rotatable planning-Box-Hunter second-order modeling was used to achieve the data. The independent variables’ influence – specific consumption of ammonium nitrate and ground phosphate rock on the nutrients’ content in the target products were determined. It has been established that two opposite processes accompany their change, that is, it increases by an increase in the specific consumption of ammonium nitrate with a simultaneous decrease in the specific consumption of ground phosphate rock, and vice versa; and it decreases with a decrease in the specific consumption of ammonium nitrate with a simultaneous increase in the particular consumption of ground phosphate rock in the initial mixture. An adequate regression equation was found for the independent variables’ influence on the nutrients’ ratios in products. It was shown that, with corresponding changes in the initial mixture from 0.36 t to 0.67t and 0.54t to 0.29t in the products, the N/ P2O5 ratios increased from 2.51 to 4.68. Moreover, it is possible to obtain a whole set of NP-fertilizers with improved agrochemical and consumer properties, with a total NP content of 25% to 28% in their composition. monium nitrate, ground phosphate rock, nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus pentoxide