Explain manufacturing of Ammonium nitrate.
Ammonium Nitrate
Process description – In the Stengel process, vapours of ammonia & nitric acid are mixed in a stainless steel reactor. The reaction is exothermic & hence heat is given out. The mixture of steam & molten ammonium nitrate is fed to cyclone type separator. The molten mass is solidified on the water cooled stainless steel belts .Then material is passed to a grinder where is the material is crushed dried and ground to flake size then, ammonium nitrate flakes are coated with clay.
Reaction
HNO3 + NH3 → NH4NO3