Our password: decarbonisation

Supercups

Saipem's proprietary technology for energy efficiency in urea plants 

Our proprietary technology Supercups is an optimum solution for immediate results in energy efficiency and sustainable operations in the fertilisers sector. Let's see why. 

Fertilisers are essential to cultivate the crops required to feed billions of people and they play a crucial role both in the decarbonisation and for the sustainability of the agricultural sector.  

Urea is one of the most widespread fertilisers and enables farmers to use a nitrogen-rich product to improve crops, hold down costs and simultaneously support the growth of all the developing countries. 

What links fertilisers with decarbonisation is the hydrogen they come from.

The current methods to produce hydrogen are based on high-carbon processes, such as the steam reforming of methane from natural gas or coal gasification. It is then converted into ammonia and lastly into products, such as urea.

In this case, a large proportion of the carbon dioxide created as a by-product from generating hydrogen is recycled to produce urea. However, the amount of residual CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere remains significant. 

Whereas many efforts are currently being made to find the most cost effective technological combination to obtain green products, today there are proven solutions available to improve the sustainability of urea production. 

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The Supercups technology represents an excellent solution in this area to improve the urea process from within, by optimising the performance of the reactor for urea synthesis.

Supercups is a direct response to the demand for better performing processes and aims to optimise capital investments for high pressure equipment, reduce energy consumption and the environmental impact of urea production.  

Supercups boosts the level of efficiency of the reactors' conversion to urea, by increasing production without any modification to the plant or reduction in energy consumption for equal production capacity.

Fuel saving means a reduction in CO₂ emissions without the need for any carbon capture system and thus avoids any problem linked to the storage and use of the captured CO₂. 

The innovation of Supercups lies in the creation of a reaction space restricted within the reactor, i.e. the outlet collectors. 

Supercups was first tested in 2016 in collaboration with the Austrian company, Borealis, and the Pakistani company FFC.

Saipem now commercialises it as proprietary equipment for urea installations. The technology was applied effectively to design a new generation of urea reactors and to improve the performance of existing units via retrofit design. 

The Supercups innovation was used in several projects, which contribute towards environmental benefits to reduce the carbon intensity of urea facilities and reduce the equivalent CO₂ emissions.  

The case study is important for modernising a urea reactor for an Indian client who manages a medium-small plant.

To give a simple, yet effective idea of these contributions, we have only to think that the aforementioned reduction in carbon intensity to produce urea is estimated as the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 3,000 cars. 3,000 cars removed from circulation in just one go! 

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