Isolation of liquid urea from the off-gas of the synthesis of melamine

In a process for isolating liquid urea or a mixture of liquid urea and its thermal decomposition products from the off-gases of the synthesis of melamine, which arise on catalytic conversion of urea at an elevated temperature, and have been freed from melamine by fractional condensation and subsequently been washed with a wash liquid comprising molten urea or a mixture of molten urea and its thermal decomposition products, the improvement which comprises:

• passing the gas-liquid mixture coming from the wash zone and containing 2-10 kg of the melt per kg of pure gas tangentially, at a velocity of 8-30 m/sec, into the upper part of an axially symmetrical separation zone, where, due to the rotation imparted to the gas-liquid mixture, the two phases are separated from one another and both are moved downward, in the same direction, through the separation zone, and gas and separated-out liquid are taken off separately from one another at the bottom end of the separation zone, the mean residence time of the gas mixture in the separation zone being not less than 0.5 second.