Tier 0 screening per tonne of NPK 15-15-15: feeds from the stoichiometry of a model rock and product with the EFMA NP-solution composition, utilities from two EU plants in the LVIC-AAF BREF, emissions from EFMA BAT levels. Ammonium nitrate and lime are co-products. No flowsheet; not reviewed.
NPK 15-15-15 by the nitrophosphate (ODDA) route, with CNTH conversion to ammonium nitrate and lime
Tier 0 screening per tonne of NPK 15-15-15: feeds from the stoichiometry of a model rock and product with the EFMA NP-solution composition, utilities from two EU plants in the LVIC-AAF BREF, emissions from EFMA BAT levels. Ammonium nitrate and lime are co-products. No flowsheet; not reviewed.
Research outputNot engineering advice and not an approved design: do not use it for construction, operation or safety decisions. What this means
Overview
- Capacity
- per tonne of NPK 15-15-15 (the dataset's basis); no plant size (typical plants make about 50 t/h)
What goes in and out
In
- Phosphate rockFeedstockMoroccan sedimentary rock, modelled as fluorapatite, calcite, fluorite and silica (33.6 % P2O5), the model rock of phosphoric-acid-1
- Nitric acidFeedstockabout 60 wt%, counted by mass of the acid; linked to nitric-acid-1 (lca/mappings.yaml)
- AmmoniaFeedstockliquid; linked to ammonia-1 (lca/mappings.yaml)
- Potassium chlorideFeedstockmuriate of potash, taken as pure KCl (ASSUMED)
- Carbon dioxideFeedstockfrom an ammonia plant's CO2 removal, for the CNTH conversion
- DolomiteFeedstockASSUMED filler that closes the grade
- MethaneFeedstocknatural gas for the dryers, taken as pure methane (ASSUMED)
- AirFeedstockcombustion air, free; its O2 is feed:O2
Out
- NPK compound fertiliserMain product
- Ammonium nitrateCo-productAN solution from the CNTH conversion, meant for CAN or AN production (not linked yet), counted as NH4NO3
- Calcium carbonateCo-productlime from the CNTH conversion, meant for CAN production (not linked yet)
- Silicon dioxideBy-productwashed sand from the digestion liquor, used as building material
- Carbon dioxideEmissionrock carbonate and fuel
- WaterEmissionthe net water, as vapour (ASSUMED)
Utilities: Electricity, Steam (by mass; pressure not stated by the source (AN evaporation takes saturated steam up to 9 bar)), Air (feed:compressed-air: 38 Nm3/t compressed air (AMI Linz), pressure and dryness not stated, so not linked to utility-instrument-air (8 bar(a), per kg); a reported gap)
Life cycle assessment
No footprint assessed yet; the process is part of the life-cycle inventory below.
In the open LCI database (cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-a3c52e4) as NPK compound fertiliser, NPK 15-15-15, nitrate-based, granular Preliminary; Ammonium nitrate, aqueous solution, as NH4NO3 contained Preliminary; Calcium carbonate (lime) from the CNTH conversion, to CAN Preliminary.
Download it for Brightway, openLCA and other tools.
In the LCI database: system model, datasets and KPIs against the benchmarks
In the LCI database
- Status
- Preliminary 11 unmapped exchanges. Some exchanges have no background mapping yet: they are exported unlinked and count no burden, so the inventory is incomplete.
- System model
- attributional, cut-off (methodology 1.1.0)
- Allocation
- mass (deviation, from dataset) · product:ammonium-nitrate 23.9 %, product:calcium-carbonate 19.5 %, product:npk 56.6 %
- Allocation findings
- none
- Change report
- Not available: this build has no change report against an earlier release.
- Dataset pages
- Ammonium nitrate, aqueous solution, as NH4NO3 contained Preliminary · Calcium carbonate (lime) from the CNTH conversion, to CAN Preliminary · NPK compound fertiliser, NPK 15-15-15, nitrate-based, granular Preliminary
KPI benchmark positions
| KPI | Value | Reference range | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calcium carbonate from the CNTH conversion per t of P2O5 in the NPK | – t/t | 2.2 to 2.2 t/t | not evaluated |
| CO2 used by the CNTH conversion per t of P2O5 in the NPK | – t/t | 1 to 1 t/t | not evaluated |
| Phosphate rock per t of P2O5 in the NPK | – t/t | 3.5 to 3.5 t/t | not evaluated |
| Electricity per t of NPK, nitrophosphate route No open source independent of the dataset found (2026-11-05). The only open figures for the nitrophosphate route are the two of LVIC-AAF BREF Table 7.3, p. 290 (AMI Linz 109 kWh/t, infoMil 2001 50 kWh/t), and the dataset takes its value as their midpoint, so a range made of them would only check the transcription. Read: EFMA (2000) BAT booklet No. 7 (no energy figures); UNIDO (1985) comparison of the Odda NPK process (downloads.unido.org, costs only). Not found as open text: Davis and Haglund (1999) SIK report 654. ecoinvent NPK datasets are licensed and not used. | – kWh/t | not available | not evaluated |
Maturity and review
Design maturity Concept (claimed): An idea or first flowsheet; numbers are rough. No independent engineering review yet. Automated checks passing is not a review.
Calculation maturity, from the checked evidenceNot assessed
The process has no maturity report (cheme maturity, checks/maturity.json), so no calculation maturity is established.
No level shownThe design maturity (Concept) is the manifest's claim, not evidence. A level appears here once the process's repository holds a current report from
cheme maturity --write.Artifact completeness
Which deliverables exist. They never raise a calculation maturity level: a drawing from unchecked numbers is still unchecked.
Not reported without a maturity report.
Independent review
Not independently reviewed
No independent engineering review yet. Automated checks passing is not a review.
Set by people only. Reaching a calculation maturity level or passing automated checks is not an independent review or an approval.
Where the evidence comes from
- Report
processes/npk-fertilizers-1/checks/maturity.json(not in the library)- Method
- How ChemE-as-Code checks the levels (requirement by requirement)
Open items
0 open items · 0 closed
New action itemNew engineering holdNew technical queryNew design changeAll issues
Sources
- Library version
- a3c52e4 (process last changed in a3c52e4)
- Data
- Catalog record (JSON) · CC-BY-4.0
- Files
- View the files on GitHub · change history and authors
References
- European Commission, JRC (2007) Reference Document on Best Available Techniques for the Manufacture of Large Volume Inorganic Chemicals - Ammonia, Acids and Fertilisers (LVIC-AAF BREF), August 2007, chapters 5 and 7
- EFMA (2000) Best Available Techniques for Pollution Prevention and Control in the European Fertilizer Industry, Booklet No. 7 of 8: Production of NPK fertilizers by the nitrophosphate route, 2000 edition (Fertilizers Europe)
How to cite
For the data, cite the Process Atlas paper; for the platform that builds and checks it, the ChemE-as-Code paper.
Schweidtmann, A. M. & Weber, J. M. (2026, in preparation). Process Atlas: an open, git-native, reproducible library and life cycle inventory of chemical processes (working title).
For this process: "NPK 15-15-15 by the nitrophosphate (ODDA) route, with CNTH conversion to ammonium nitrate and lime", ChemE-as-Code process library, version a3c52e4.
BibTeX
@unpublished{schweidtmann_process_atlas,
author = {Schweidtmann, Artur M. and Weber, Jana M.},
title = {{Process Atlas: an open, git-native, reproducible library and life cycle inventory of chemical processes (working title)}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://atlas.cheme-as-code.org},
note = {in preparation}
}Schweidtmann, A. M. (2026). ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for Agentic AI in Chemical Engineering. arXiv:2611.07947. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2611.07947
BibTeX
@misc{schweidtmann_cheme_as_code,
author = {Schweidtmann, Artur M.},
title = {{ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for Agentic AI in Chemical Engineering}},
year = {2026},
eprint = {2611.07947},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2611.07947},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.07947}
}