To avoid caking and minimize dust, fertilizer producers, distributors, and suppliers cover dry fertilizer coating materials with potash coating chemicals. For over 50 years, mineral oils or treatments based on petroleum were the only anti-caking/dusting options.
This problem was addressed in the formulation that uses free-flowing, vegetable-based oils. In a market where technical advancements have a significant influence, there are many fertilizer producers, distributors, and suppliers in competition.
The country’s planting seasons are getting shorter due to technological advancements like equipment automation, air and soil sensors, and variable rate swath control, which have higher tolerances for fertilizer quality.
The producer must guarantee that the fertilizer clients get of high quality. In addition to ensuring that they match anticipated nutrient needs, physical quality criteria should guarantee that they are free-flowing, dust-free, and hygroscopicity-free.
Additionally, when considering downtime, recycling, reprocessing, rejections, and perhaps regulatory fines, physical quality has an indirect and direct influence on manufacturing economics. Caking and dust generation problems are typical difficulties in manufacturing and producing fertilizers.
Anti-Caking Agents
Most fertilizers tend to “cake” or form lumps during storage due to contact points developing between the particles. According to popular belief, the most troublesome crystal bridges originate in these locations.
Depending on the flexibility of the particles and the pressure applied to the fertilizer granulating aid, weak Van der Waals forces leading to capillary adhesion can also happen. For that, we have filter aid powder manufacturers.
Both internal and external elements, such as chemical composition, mechanical strength, moisture content, ambient temperatures, and the storage period, impact caking severity.
The presence of moisture has the most influence. The process of drying varies greatly depending on how fertilizer is made. Another factor is the fertilizer’s propensity to clump together because of its chemical makeup. For instance, NPK products’ effectiveness is made using urea instead of ammonium sulfate NPK.
Anti-Dusting Agents
Bulk material handling and storage challenges related to caking and dust generation. This issue in the fertilizer sector results in waste and has possible safe fertilizer coating and environmental and health risks.
Commonly produced in powder, crystalline, or granular form, phosphate fertilizers tend to cake or crumble into dust. Due to their size and lightness, fertilizer dust may be carried even by sluggish air currents.
Numerous issues with worker organic fertilizer coating, environmental compliance, higher production expenses, and expensive equipment maintenance and repair costs might be brought on by this dust. Furthermore, the possibility of spontaneous combustion from prolonged storage increases the dust produced by fertilizers over time.
Because spontaneous combustion affects both the temperature at which fertilizers are processed and the temperature at which completed goods are stored, it is an issue. The extremely smooth surface of UREA, a granule or prilled fertilizer, makes it challenging to find an appropriate anti-caking/anti-dust agent.
Dust Suppression Equipment
Fertilizer dust control systems are pretty famous anti-dusting products. Dust may be readily controlled before airborne with a dust suppression device. To reduce the number of airborne dust particles during fertilizer production, dust suppression systems use a series of nozzles to spray anti-dusting compounds in a fine mist. Wherever dust is a risk, this device may be employed whenever bulk material needs to be handled.
Conclusion
When petroleum-based deformer chemicals are used as fertilizer dusting or anti-dust agent suppliers, their concentration in the soil is indirectly increased. These products reduce this harmful impact while offering a more affordable option by employing components derived from vegetables. Vegetable-based products reduced the dust in extremely porous MAP, TSP, and DAP granules by more than 40% compared to mineral oil.
