Cradle to Gate
Identity ID
46501a49-b5b2-44ae-943f-597872fe2100
Materials
Associated ID
067e7584-f545-4821-98dd-2b2d93b5d449
Included activities starts
Included activities ends
Description
Phosphoric acid is widely used in fields such as agricultural fertilisers, industrial treatment, the food industry, pharmaceuticals and detergents, coatings and ceramic production; phosphoric acid is modelled as a pure substance (100% active substance); when modelling this substance the user needs to add a solvent of their choice in the model; the fertiliser grade of phosphoric acid is impure and contains ≥42% P2O5; the dataset contains the main raw and auxiliary materials, energy, waste and atmospheric emissions of the production process, and infrastructure such as the manufacture of production equipment and the construction of plant buildings is not included within the dataset boundary; the data inventory is formed by merging data from multiple sources; the production activities of this product include slurry filter pressing, reaction, filtration, fluorine recovery, tail gas scrubbing and concentration. Fluorosilicic acid is a by-product of this production process, allocated according to economic value.
Activity Description
The production activities of this product include pulp filtration, reaction, filtration, fluorine recovery, tail gas washing, concentration and other processes.
Process Description
The chemical formula of phosphoric acid is H3PO4, CAS number 7664-38-2. The pure product is colorless and transparent orthorhombic crystals. The industrial grade is mostly colorless and viscous liquid, odorless and slightly sour. It is easily soluble in water and miscible with ethanol. The aqueous solution is weakly acidic. When heated to 213°C, it will lose water and form pyrophosphoric acid, and further heating will form metaphosphoric acid. It has stable chemical properties and is not easy to decompose. It is a ternary medium-strong acid that can react with alkali to form normal salts and acid salts (such as potassium dihydrogen phosphate and diammonium hydrogen phosphate). Phosphoric acid is widely used in agriculture (producing high-efficiency phosphate fertilizers such as diammonium phosphate and monoammonium phosphate), industry (metal surface phosphating treatment for rust prevention, electroplating solution preparation, detergent production), food industry (as sour agent, nutritional enhancer), pharmaceutical field (preparation of phosphate drugs) and detergents, coatings, ceramics and other industries.
Time period
2021
2026
Geography
China
Macroeconomic value
Business-as-Usual
Data validation
Yes
Technology
Current Technology
Technology comment
Wet phosphoric acid is the traditional mainstream technology for producing fertilizer-grade phosphoric acid. It relies on the low-cost advantage of direct acid hydrolysis of phosphate rock resources and accounts for more than 80% of the domestic fertilizer-grade phosphoric acid market. It is the core supporting technology of the phosphate compound fertilizer industry. This data set represents the mainstream technology: the production of fertilizer-grade phosphoric acid from phosphate rock through the wet phosphoric acid process. The wet process includes the dihydrate process, the semi-aqueous process, the semi-aqueous-dihydrate process, etc. The metathesis reaction occurs between the phosphate rock (main component Ca5(PO4)3F) and sulfuric acid to generate phosphoric acid, calcium sulfate (gypsum) and fluoride, which are then filtered, separated and concentrated, and fluorine recovery and tail gas treatment are performed at the same time. The main reaction equations involved are: Ca5(PO4)3F + 5H2SO4 + 10H2O → 3H3PO4 + 5CaSO4·2H2O↓+ HF↑; 6HF + SiO2 → H2SiF6 + 2H2O