Prilling And Granulation

Prepared
by:

Mussab jaffar
Farhad Rafique
Muhammad
yousaf
farooq bashir
Khalid nawaz

Objectives Of Our
Presentation
1) What are prills and Prillings
2)Why we are studying prillings
3) Prilling Tower?
4)what are grains and granulation
5)why we study granulation
6) Granulator?
7) And their Industrial applications

Introduction
A prill is small agregate of material, most
often a dry sphere formed from melted
liquid
Soldification of droplets of
molten material free falling against
Upward stream of air in tower is

called

Prilling

Why we need prills

It is more convenient for use , storage and
transporting because of their much smaller
specific surface area and bulk density
Prills of fertilizers are small , easy to
handle , easily absorb in land , light in
weight , very small impurities etc

Why we need prills

Prilling Tower
and its
general consederations

The melt must be sprayed into droplets

uniform size as required
The sprayed droplets must be fully
solidified and cooled in order to avoid
bonding of particles with each other and
caking on wall

Construction of prilling
Tower

It is cylindrical vertical tower with

average hight 75 m , in which urea prilling
take place with huge diameter it has two
prill sections

One is at top from where molten fertilizer

comes and other one at bottom from
where prills are collected

FFC prilling tower

(in our home town)

Working principle
The molten fertilizer is sent on the top of
fertilizer plant with the help of centrifugal
pump
With the help of spryer molten fertilizer is
droped from the top in the form drops inside
the prilling tower
While from the bottom hot air is blown
which dries the droplets in the form of solid
prills

PRILLING TOWER:

PRILLING TOWER:

PRILLING TOWER:

Products of prilling tower

This process is widely used in
manufacturing of ammonium nitrate,
calcium nitrate and fertilizers of N,K and
P
Prilling also used in explosives industry to
produce porous prills of amonium nitrate
which will absorb oil
Typical prilling tower produce 200 ton/day
of fertilizer

Hight Of Prilling Tower

In order to produce large size fertilizer
prills the hight of prilling should be high
and vice versa
Higher the hight of prilling tower more will
be the strength of prills
50 m high fertilizer prilling tower produce
2mm size prills while , for explosive
particles size of prilling tower is about 10 m
to produce small prills

Inside view of prilling

tower

Drawbacks
The prill tower is a major source of
emission in urea plants. The large volumes
of discharged untreated cooling air contain
particulate urea dust (1-2kg.t-1) as well as
NH3 (0.7-1.0kg.t-1).
Increasing the load on a prilling tower can
have negative consequences for the prill
quality. Higher moisture contents and
higher temperatures cause more dust
formation and an increased likelihood of
caking problems

Competition from granules

The quality of prills is significant less than
that of granules, the main difference being
the lower strength and smaller size of prills.
Research has shown that once a farmer has
used granules, he will not choose prills again,
unless the price is lower.
Most new urea plants are large scale
granulation plants and are located in low
feedstock areas; these plants are export
driven and compete or will compete with
your prills.

Importance Of Prilling
TOwer
Prilling tower is backbone of fertilizer or
any other chemical industry where the
final product is in the form of solid prills
We cant imagine a fertilizer industry
without a prilling tower
The process in prilling tower is
continuous , prills moves downward due to
gravitational force

Granulation Technology
Granulation may be defined as a size
enlargement process which converts fine or
coarse
It is the process of collecting particles together by
creating bonds between them. Bonds are formed by
compression or by using a binding agent
particles into physically stronger and larger
agglomerates having good flow property,
better
compression characteristics and uniformity. The art
and science for process and production of
granules is known as Granulation Technology.

Powder To Grains

Before granulation

After granulation

Types of granulation
Dry
granulati
on

Wet
graulat
ion

Dry Granulation and its

characteristics
Dry granulation involves granule formation
without using liquid solution
In dry granulation powder particles may
be brought together mechanically by
compression into slugs
Products maybe sensitive to heat and
temperature

Wet Granulation

The process in which powder form particles

combine to form bigger and solid particle
by the process of agglorimation with the
help of binding agent like water

It is mainly used in pharmacutical industry ,

in the formation of tablets

merits

demerit
s

Granulator
The instrument where the process of
granulation take place is called granulator
Granulators are classified on the base of
shear
Shear is mechanical force applied by
instrument
Granulators may be high shear , low shear
or intermediate shear

Granulation Techniques

There are four major techniques which are

used for wet granulation process

1)high shear mixing granulation

2)fluid bed granulation

3)rotating disk method

4)spray drying

High shear mixing

granulation
In this type of equipment, the particles
are set into movement by an impeller
rotating at a high speed (Approx 50100 rpm). Equipment also contains a
chopper which
rotates at around 1500 4000 rpm [10].
The primary function of chopper is to cut
large lumps
into smaller fragments thus increases the
binder distribution into the blend.

Input parameters
Impeller speed : higher the impeller speed
generally denser and smaller granules ,
lower the speed generally more porous and
large particles
Chopper speed : there is no effect of
chopper speed on granules size but in the
case when chopper is large size it act as
secondary impeller

Type of binder

Surface tension: lower surface tension

binder will be use in large amount to form
granules of same size as compared to
binder with high surface tension

Viscosity: a binder with higher viscosity will

produce smaller and stronger granules

Fluid bed granulator

Fluid bed granulator is low shear type

granulator

Fluid bed means suspended different

particles in air

The term fluidization used which means

mixing of solids

Mechanism

The powder particles are fluidized in a

steam of air , but in addition of granulation
fluid sprayed from nozzle on bed of powder

Heated and filtered air is blown in order to

mix powder

Granulation fluid is pumped from a reservior

through a spry nozzle positioned over bed
of particle the fluid cause the particles to
adhere when droplets and particle collide
escape of material from chamber is
prevented by exaust filter sufficient liquid is
sprayed to produce require size particles

Spray dryer
> Spray dryer is the process has been used
to produce microcapsules , food
ingredients , flavors and various
biotechnological ingredients
>This process differ from others as it isa
continues process

Mechanism
Spray dryer is like a prilling tower but it is
used to produce granules
Hot solution is sprayed through atomizer
from the top
Hot air blown in counter or co current
manner
As water evaporate concentration of
solution increase and granules form
Granules are separated by cyclone
techniques

Advantages

Rapid and continues process

Reduce overall cost

No dust formation

Suitable for heat and moisture

Thumb rules for

granulation
Granulation mainly used in pharmacutical
industry
Granulation time particle size
Amount of binder granulation time or size
Particle size surface area amount of
binder solution granulation time
Hydrofobicity hydrophiicity
amount of
binder solution granulation time

comparison

In prilling tower hot molten

liquid and air moves counter
current manner
It do not involve any binder
Its end product is hollow
and size is not uniform
More tendency for caking
and breakage
Operation is simple
It does not involve
agglorimation
Less storage life

prilling

In granulation powdered
particles adhere in form of
large particle
It involves use of binder
End product is solid and size is
uniform
No breakage and less caking
tendency
Operation is not simple
screening and cyclone
separator used
It involve process of
agglorimation
Long storage life

granulation

Khalid Nawaz
cell no:+923007024407
institute of chemical engineering and technology Punjab
university Lahore Pakistan