Acron facility in Veliky Novgorod has completed a project aimed at increasing output of technical ammonium nitrate containing brucite. Production output has doubled since 2012.
The two-stage project to increase output of technical ammonium nitrate, which enjoys strong demand in the world market, started in 2012. The first stage saw implementation of a new filtration plant from the Italian company Filmac, which made it possible to efficiently and automatically produce up to 60,000 tonnes of technical ammonium nitrate per month with 0.3%-0.5% magnesium content in the final product. The output is the purest solution of magnesium nitrate.
The second stage involved upgrades to the rail unloading facility for brucite and improvements to the brucite supply process. For this purpose a new magnesite (brucite) unloading plant was commissioned to load and unload up to 120 tonnes of raw materials per hour – twice the capacity of the old equipment. A new distributed control system was also installed and instrumentation and automation equipment was upgraded.
“With the magnesium nitrate solution plant, the output of ammonium nitrate containing brucite has increased significantly compared to previous years, reaching over 170,000 tonnes in 2015,” said Acron Executive Director Vladimir Gavrikov.
Ammonium nitrate is a universal nitrogen fertiliser containing nitrogen in both ammonium and nitrate forms. It serves as a raw material for blended fertilisers and urea-ammonia blends. Adding magnesium nitrate improves the finished product quality, granule hardness and plant efficiency.