Honeywell said Sept. 23 that it has developed a patented new technology to produce a highly-effective, safer ammonium nitrate-based fertilizer with significantly lower explosive potential. Honeywell has been working on the process for some time (GM Sept. 19, 2005, p. 11), and industry players have been anxiously waiting for its entrance on the market.
Honeywell says the new technology has already received Safety Act Designation from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act, which was created to provide incentives, including liability protections, for the development and deployment of anti-terrorism technologies that can help mitigate security threats.
“The unique composition of this new fertilizer makes it extremely difficult to turn it into a weapon,” said Qamar Bhatia, vice president and general manager of Honeywell Resins & Chemicals, which is one of the world’s largest producers of ammonium sulfate fertilizer. “Ammonium nitrate has long been an excellent fertilizer, but this technology makes it safer.”
Honeywell said independent tests using guidelines developed with the U.S. government demonstrated that Honeywell’s new fertilizer is significantly more difficult to use as an explosive. When mixed with fuel oil – a common method of using ammonium nitrate as an explosive – the new ammonium sulfate nitrate fertilizer did not detonate.
The new technology fuses ammonium sulfate with ammonium nitrate, providing both nitrogen and sulfur needed for efficient plant nutrition, as well as enhanced safety, quality and storage characteristics. The new product will have 26 percent nitrogen and 14 percent sulfur.
Honeywell said initial laboratory work was conducted at its manufacturing facility in Hopewell, Va. Additional scale-up has been conducted through partnerships at various locations. Honeywell said it is conducting pilot plant test production of the new fertilizer to finalize scale-up and engineering for manufacturing, and is also in talks with potential manufacturing partners. The company hopes to have limited quantities for sale in certain regions in 2009, and plans to market the material as Sulf-N(R) 26 fertilizer.
“Our intent would be to adopt a partner’s existing facility to produce the new fertilizer,” Peter Dalpe, a Honeywell spokesman, told Green Markets. “When we finalize that partner and location, we are likely to sell our fertilizer in the region around that location.”
While the company would not identify potential partners, it would not be hard to tab the most likely suspects as Terra Industries Inc. and El Dorado Chemical Co., a unit of LSB Industries Inc., the two largest agricultural ammonium nitrate producers in the U.S.
Honeywell said it is important to note that it could have multiple partners, and that it is looking to license the technology.
Honeywell confirmed that it expects to sell the product as a premium product to regular ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate, due to its safety characteristics and the agronomic benefits of sulfur. Sulf-N 26 will be sold in dry bulk form in either truck or railcars.
Actual U.S. consumption of ammonium nitrate was put at 963,710 st for the fertilizer year ending June 30, 2006, according to the publication Commercial Fertilizers 2006, a joint effort of the Association of American Plant Food Control Officials and The Fertilizer Institute. This was down from 2005’s 1.42 million st. Ammonium sulfate consumption was up slightly in 2006 to 1.22 million st from 2005’s 1.18 million st. These numbers are on a short ton basis of materials.
Honeywell says independent agronomic tests on crops and plants – ranging from grass to cabbage and tomatoes to strawberries and oranges – found the new fertilizer to be as effective or more effective compared to alternative fertilizers, including straight mixtures of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate. The tests, conducted over the last two years, were completed by major universities in the U.S., Canada and Brazil.
“We believe there are many regions where soil types and crops can benefit from sulfate-sulfur as well as a non-volatile nitrogen fertilizer,” said Dalpe.
Also, the new fertilizer is both non-hazardous and non-oxidizing as tested by United Nations and U.S. Department of Transportation standards.
Honeywell worked with the DHS and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to develop testing procedures to evaluate the explosive potential of the new fertilizer. The tests were conducted independently by Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC), a division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. As part of those tests, the new fertilizer was mixed with a number of substances, including explosives, sensitizer, and fuel oil. In all tests, the new fertilizer significantly reduced or eliminated the explosive power of traditional ammonium nitrate.
Honeywell Resin & Chemicals is a part of Honeywell Specialty Materials and is a global leader in the development and production of ammonium sulfate fertilizers, which it sells under the Sulf-N brand for both crop and turf applications. For more information, go to http://www.sulfn26.com.