History of UFT fluid bed granulation process

In the mid 1970's the fluid bed granulation technology was developed by NSM Sluiskil (then Hydro Agri, later Yara), a large nitrogen fertilizer company, producing urea in Sluiskil (The Netherlands) since the 1950's.

Granulated urea was required by the market at that time to overcome the various shortcomings like particle size limitations, poor hardness, product caking, environmental constraints of prilled urea.

The process was developed with the following requirements in mind:

• produce urea granules, at sizes required by the market, of the highest possible quality standards;
• operate environmentally friendly, at competitive costs;
• feature great operation flexibility in a simple manner;
• design match, as single train units, the ever increasing urea synthesis capacities;
• reduce the investment cost to competitive levels.

After extensive laboratory research and pilot plant tests, the process was successfully implemented on industrial scale in Sluiskil in 1979. From 1980, the technology was, with great success, licensed to fertilizer producers world wide, by HFT/ YFT, a dedicated licensing company registered in Sluiskil. The fluid bed granulation became the leading technology, featuring more than 50 references with single stream capacities ranging from 500 mt/d to 3,600 mt/d.

In 2004, after the de-merger of Norsk Hydro's fertilizers activities into independent Yara International, Yara's decision to strictly focus on its core business (production and marketing of fertilizers) enticed the divestment of the urea fluid bed granulation licensing business. In 2005 Uhde Fertilizer Technology acquired the exclusive world wide rights to further license the technology without any restrictions.