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Melting for Glass
State-of-the-art solutions for your glass melting operations
Oxygen-enhanced combustion technologies can help improve furnace performance by displacing combustion air with oxygen. Even a small increase in oxygen concentration can have a dramatic impact on furnace operations, especially when using fuels with low heating values, and/or improving operations or regaining control of furnaces with failing heat recovery devices. By reducing or eliminating the introduction of inert nitrogen into the furnace, oxygen-enhanced combustion technologies have proven to increase production, decrease fuel consumption, and reduce emissions, while maintaining or even increasing product quality. With a range of proprietary Cleanfire® burners, melting technologies, and modeling services, our global team can use their skills and experience to help you with design, start-up, and ongoing operation of the optimal system for your furnace.
A Wide Range of Oxygen-Enhanced Glass Melting Options
A variety of oxygen enrichment and oxy-fuel combustion methods can be used to enhance glass melting
Oxygen Enrichment
Oxygen is injected into the main combustion air system well ahead of the delivery point to the furnace. This pre-mix of oxygen is most common on recuperative furnaces or unit melters that have many such delivery points or on regenerative melters where it is desirable to use the oxygen to enhance the entire combustion process in a consistent manner.
Oxygen Lancing
This method has historically been the most cost-effective way to use oxygen to supplement air-fuel combustion. The strategic injection of oxygen beside, beneath or through air-fuel flames has allowed glass melters to reach campaign objectives in terms of pull rate, fuel efficiency and glass quality. The benefits of oxygen lancing accrue from having the oxygen mix with fuel where it is most needed.
Oxygen Boosting
The boosting concept uses oxy-fuel burners positioned within the air-fuel melter to increase production, quality, efficiency and furnace stability. Oxy-fuel boosting is typically used to increase pull rate on a furnace that is at capacity or that has been crippled due to a failure or loss of effectiveness of the air-fuel combustion system.
Full Oxy-fuel Conversion
Oxy-fuel glass melting furnaces provide the most flexible and efficient means for melting glass in large tonnage production operations. Operational benefits provided by oxygen are maximized with full conversion: increased production, decreased fuel consumption, decreased emissions, improved glass quality, reduced maintenance, and extended furnace campaign life.
Gases
Air Products gases, typically provided in gaseous and liquid form, enable customers in a wide range of industries to improve their environmental performance, product quality, and productivity.
Hydrogen
Valued for its reactive and protective properties, and used by many industries such as electronics, foods, glass, chemicals, refining and more can benefit from its unique properties to improve quality, optimize performance and reduce costs.
Oxygen
In addition to its use as a respiratory gas for healthcare applications, its strong oxidizing properties benefit many industries by improving yields, optimizing performance, lowering costs and reducing carbon footprint compared to other fuels.
Oxy-fuel Glass Melting
- Lower capital cost
- Higher fuel efficiency
- Reduced NOₓ, SOₓ and particulate emissions
- Improved glass quality
Plan for success.