Glass Melting Technology: A Technical and Economic ... - OSTI

and port structures. Fuel savings of 15 to 40 percent are commonly experienced with
conversions, although this does not offset an additional cost for oxygen, an incentive for
development of waste heat recovery systems.
• Segmented melting
Separate the stages of the glass fusion process into distinct processes. Fluorine, boron and
lead containing batches could be converted from oxides to glass in all batch/all electric
pre-melter segmented melters prior to seeing fossil fuels. Industry should intensify this
new, lower-cost technology for batch preheating, primary melter, secondary dissolution,
forming, and vacuum refining, and thus optimize each stage of the glass formation
process. Backflow from one section to a previous section would be limited because
segmentation will broaden the residence time distribution and affect energy efficiency.
Maximum residence time is limited, and glassmakers should aim for low residence time
in the melting and refining processes.
Look at all aspects of the melting process as individual units to be optimized, such as
sand dissolution, homogenization, refining, and conditioning, as well as optimum quality
achieve in the final fabricated product. Look at these different systems to allow new
products, value, and quality to be created to ensure capital replacement and minimize
total energy use, with a focus on reducing environmental impact of the total melting
system.
Consider separating the melting process into high-speed, low-residence time melting and
refining processes. This implies lower capital investment/ton melted, lower pollution/ton
melted, lower energy consumption/ton melted, more flexibility, and better quality.
Separate basic glass manufacturing processes into discrete processes (batch preheating,
first stage raw material melt down, second stage melting and foam reduction, refining,
and conditioning) so that each can be intensified with new, lower-cost technology. The
processes should be designed and connected in a manner to produce only the necessary
and sufficient conditions required to achieve the quality requirements of each specific end
product.
All aspects of the melting process should be regarded as individual units to be optimized,
including sand dissolution, homogenization, refining and conditioning, and optimum
quality in the final fabricated product. These different systems can be seen as ways to
create new products, value and quality to ensure the ability to replace capital and to
minimize total energy use, with a focus on reducing the environmental impact of the total
melting system.
• Review innovations
Technologies developed in the 1990s during an economic boom may be transferable to
current glassmaking with minimal effort. Numerous entrepreneurs worked in a variety of
areas such as hazardous material vitrification, post-consumer glass recycling, radioactive
material disposal, and soil remediation. Concepts from previous innovations that have
been developed but abandoned due to scale-up could provide valuable information to
93