Prayon Technologies offers cadmium removal solutions!

A new solution to remove cadmium without using any additive in phosphate fertilizers? This is the latest technology offered by Prayon Technologies to limit the concentration of cadmium in phosphoric acid-based fertilizers. 

With this new offer, Prayon Technologies supports its customers who face ever-stricter EU regulations regarding the presence of cadmium in fertilizers.  

To enable our customers to reach the challenging cadmium target of 20mg/kg of P₂O₅, we have indeed several innovative solutions in our portfolio. 

The classical route to eliminate the cadmium from phosphoric acid is the use of co-precipitation additives. These additives catch the cadmium, which can then be disposed of as a solid residue. A varied number of additives are available on the market and can be applied in various ways in any phosphoric acid production process. Throughout its different projects, Prayon has already tested a lot of these additives and can provide an efficient solution based on this process. However, these additives are often costly and impact the process (extra separation step needed, loss of performances, etc.). 

Prayon has therefore recently developed a new technology to eliminate cadmium from phosphoric acid without using any additive. The process was initially developed based on Prayon’s DA-HF technology but could be applied for any other process. This new technology uses the existing equipment present in the phosphoric acid plant and adapt its usage and process parameters to produce a cadmium free merchant grade acid. 

The advantage of the DAHF process in this frame is that its parameters, designed to maximize P₂O₅recovery, also directly promote the elimination of cadmium from the phosphoric acid. For other processes, a small post-treatment of the acid obtained after filtration would be required to bring it in the DAHF specifications and obtain the same result. 

The advantages of this process compared to the use of additives are multiple:

• Reduced OPEX, as no additional chemical is required
• Reduced CAPEX, as no extra separation step is required

• Optimal performances, as pilot trials have shown the possibility to reach a MGA with cadmium concentration below 1 ppm

Interested? Contact us and we will define together the best-suited technology to allow you to eliminate the cadmium from your phosphate-based fertilizers products!

Don’t wait and get in touch with our Business Development Engineer, Hadrien Leruth (hleruth@prayon.com).