Mekog
| Industry | Chemical |
|---|---|
| Fate | closed, part of plant shipped to Pernis |
| Founded | 1928 |
| Defunct | 2010 |
| Headquarters | nr. IJmuiden, Netherlands |
| Products | Ammonia, Nitrogen fertilizers |
Coordinates: 52°28′33″N 4°36′53″E / 52.475809°N 4.614658°E
Mekog (Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Kooksovengas, English coke oven gas exploitation company) was a chemical company founded 1928 that manufactured fertilizer using hydrogen from coke oven gas as a feedstock. The company's facilities were located on the site of the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Hoogovens en Staalfabrieken steelworks near IJmuiden in the Netherlands.
During the 1920s the company Koninklijke Nederlandsche Hoogovens en Staalfabrieken (KNHS) constructed a steelworks on the north bank of North Sea Canal near IJmuiden; the steel production process produced a number of auxiliary by-products including a variety of carbon and hydrogen based compounds from the production of coke from coal. Mekog was established in 1928 as a joint venture between KNHS and Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij (Shell) to use the hydrogen content of the coke oven gas to manufacture ammonia to make nitrogen based fertilizers. Production began in September 1929. The plant was located in the southeast corner of the IJmuiden site.
As initially built the process involved firstly washing the coke oven gas (~50% hydrogen, 25% methane, 15% nitrogen, 6% Carbon dioxide, 2% Carbon dioxide as main components) to remove benzene, tar and related compounds. The gas was then compressed (15atm) and washed again to remove CO2, followed by refrigeration to -200C which liquified the gas mixture with the exception of the hydrogen, which could then be separated and purified for the ammonia process. Syntheses of ammonia was carried out at 450C at 80 atm using an iron cyanide catalyst (the Mont Cenis Process) - the ammonia was washed out and the unreacted recirculated into the reaction. The ammonia produced was reacted with dilute sulphuric acid to return Ammonium sulphate as the product; initially 200 ton per day was produced. At nitric acid plant opened in 1930, and a phosphoric acid plant briefly operated in the 1930s but was uneconomic. In 1939 calcium ammonium nitrate production was started.
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