CO2 REDUCTION FROM GLASS MELTING FURNACES BY OXY-FUEL FIRING COMBINED WITH BATCH/CULLET PREHEATING

AUTHORS: H. KOBAYASHI, K.T. WU, L. H. SWITZER, S. MARTINEZ*, AND R. GIUDICI+ Praxair, Inc., Danbury, CT., U.S.A.
(sho_kobayashi@praxair.com, kt_wu@praxair.com, Leonard_switzer@praxair.com) *PRAXAIR ESPAA, S.L., Madrid, Spain (santiago_martinez@praxair.com) +RIVOIRA S.p.A., a PRAXAIR Group Company, Milan, Italy (raoul_giudici@praxair.com)

Paper presented at: XX A.T.I.V. Conference Parma, Italy September 14-16, 2005

Copyright 2006, Praxair Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

CO2 REDUCTION FROM GLASS MELTING FURNACES BY OXY-FUEL FIRING COMBINED WITH BATCH/CULLET PREHEATING H. KOBAYASHI, K.T. WU, L. H. SWITZER, S. MARTINEZ*, AND R. GIUDICI+
Praxair, Inc., Danbury, CT., U.S.A. (sho_kobayashi@praxair.com) *PRAXAIR ESPAA, S.L., Madrid, Spain (santiago_martinez@praxair.com) + RIVOIRA S.p.A., a PRAXAIR Group Company, Milan, Italy (raoul_giudici@praxair.com)

ABSTRACT About 30% fuel savings and 20% reduction in CO2 emissions have been demonstrated in an oxy-fuel fired container glass furnace combined with batch/cullet preheating, as compared with a state-of-the art regeneartive furnace. An advanced oxy-fuel fired glass melting furnace with a new batch/cullet preheater is projected to reduce the specific fuel consumption further to 2.65 GJ/mton and specific CO2 emissions to 237 Kg/ton. INTRODUCTION As the glass industry faces new regulations to reduce CO2 emissions, there are only a few practical options, i.e., switching to less carbon-intensive fuel such as natural gas and fuel reduction through furnace energy efficiency improvements. Oxy-fuel firing offers a practical option for significant CO2 reduction through furnace efficiency improvements. Actual fuel savings and CO2 reduction achieved by oxy-fuel conversion depend on the type of the glass furnace and the conditions of the heat recovery system in the original air furnace. For large container and float glass furnaces with efficient regenerators, about 10 to 20% fuel savings were typically achieved. For fiber glass furnaces with metallic recuperators fuel savings were typically in a range of 40 to 50%. For smaller speciality glass furnaces, which are generally not equipped with efficient regenerators or recuperators, fuel savings of 40-60% were achieved. Although a fuel reduction in a furnace proportionally reduces CO2 emissions from combustion, CO2 emissions for the generation of oxygen must be included to assess the global effects. The average CO2 emission to produce a ton of oxygen corresponds to about 90-125 kg at the power plant and about 12-16% fuel savings are required to break even on the overall CO2 emissions for natural gas fired furnaces [1]. Thus significant reductions in CO2 emissions have already been achieved through the glass melting furnaces converted to oxyfuel firing. The integration of a heat recovery system with oxy-fuel firing provides a large potential for further reduction of CO2, as well as fuel and oxygen consumption. FUEL CONSUMPTION AND CO2 EMISSIONS FURNACES WITH WASTE HEAT RECOVERY FOR OXY-FUEL FIRED

About ten commercial container glass furnaces have been integrated with waste heat recovery systems and achieved significant fuel reduction. A brief review of three oxy-fuel furnaces equipped with heat recovery systems is provided below. (1) Tall Crown Furnace with Waste Heat Boiler Heye Glas built an oxy-natural gas fired 350 tpd furnace for container glass in Obernkirchen, Germany in 1996[2]. The furnace was specially designed with a tall crown to reduce silica refractory corrosion and equipped with a waste heat boiler. The furnace is expected to operate for a total furnace campaign of 10-11 years with the original silica crown.

The furnace has also demonstrated a high heat transfer rate and an excellent energy efficiency with a productivity as high as 3.5 metric t/m2 d (2.8 ft2/tpd) without electric boost and a specific energy consumption of about 3.4 GJ/ton with 60% cullet. CO2 emissions are about 254 kg/ton (180 and 74 kg/ton from fuel and batch respectively.). Since the power for oxygen production is provided by the steam turbine in this integrated design, there are no additional CO2 emissions from the oxygen plant. (2) Oxy-Fuel Fired Furnace with Batch/Cullet OI-BSN (formerly Gerresheimer Glas) in Dsseldorf built a new 400 tpd container glass furnace with an Interprojekt batch/cullet preheater in 1997[3]. The melter area is 150 m2 and the specific pull rate is 2.7 t/m2 d. The specific energy consumption of about 2.9 GJ/ton was reported with 50 to 70% cullet. Flue gas is cooled to about 560 oC by injecting cooling air before the batch/cullet preheater. The batch/cullet mixture is heated to about 300 oC and the flue gas is cooled to 180-200 oC. CO2 emissions are estimated to be about 254 kg/ton (150, 74 and 30 Kg/ton from natural gas, batch and O2 production respectively), assuming 90 kg CO2 emission to produce a ton of oxygen. (3) Oxy-Fuel Fired Furnace with Cullet Preheater/Filter Leone Industries in New Jersey built a new 250 tpd oxy-fuel fired flint container glass furnace in 1998[4]. The furnace was equipped with a Praxair cullet preheater and filter system, consisting of a pyrolyzer, an ionizer and filter module. Hot flue gas from the furnace is tempered to about 260 oC with dilution air and recirculated flue gas from the pyrolyzer and introduced into the preheater/filter module for cullet heating and filtration. Cullet is also heated in the pyrolyzer where organic materials are vaporized/pyrolized by hot flue gas and the contaminated cooled flue gas is recirculated and incinerated in the hot flue gas duct. The average cullet preheat temperature is about 300 oC. The specific energy consumption was about 3.2 GJ/ton with 40 to 50% cullet. CO2 emissions are estimated to be about 299 kg/ton (166, 100 and 33 Kg/ton from natural gas, batch and O2 production respectively). DIFFERENCES IN RECOVERABLE WASTE HEAT The batch/cullet preheaters available today were originally designed for a large volume of flue gas from air fired regenerative furnaces. In order to use them for oxy-fuel fired furnaces, dilution air is mixed into the flue gas to reduce the flue gas temperature from about 1450 oC to about 500 to 600 oC. The dilution of hot flue gas not only increases the volume of the flue gas, and hence the size of the down stream gas handling equipment, but also reduces the amount of recoverable heat substantially. Figure 1 compares the amount of recoverable heat from 410 tpd container glass furnaces equipped with a batch/cullet preheater for (1) air fired regenerative furnace, (2) oxy-fuel fired furnace with dilution air, and (3) oxy-fuel fired furnace without dilution air. The flue gas temperature after the batch/cullet preheater is assumed to be 220 oC in all cases. For the air fired regenerative furnace the recoverable heat corresponds to the enthalpy difference between 450 oC (i.e., assumed flue gas temperature after the regenerators) and 220 oC, or about 50% of 13.6 GJ/hr of waste sensible heat. For the oxy-fuel fired furnace without dilution air, about 85% of 15.6 GJ/hr of waste sensible heat is recoverable due to the high flue gas temperature of 1450oC. When dilution air is used with oxy-fuel fired furnace to reduce the flue gas temperature down to 600 oC, flue gas volume is roughly tripled and the recoverable heat is reduced to about 68% of the waste sensible heat.

If cooled flue gas is recirculated and used as the diluent, the problem of reduced recoverable heat could be avoided. However, flue gas recirculation increases the complexity of the process and potentially creates maintenance concerns.

Figure 1. Recoverable waste heat in flue gas Air vs. Oxy with and without dilution air Clearly it is advantageous to use the hot flue gas from an oxy-fuel fired furnace without dilution air or flue gas recirculation. Several options have been previously patented [5]. Recuperators can be used directly to the hot flue gas to preheat oxygen and/or natural gas and to cool down the flue gas to a temperature acceptable to a batch/cullet preheater. A shadow wall can be installed near the charge end of a furnace to reduce flue gas temperature. These methods, however, add complexity and costs to the overall heat recovery process. Praxair is currently developing a batch/cullet recovery system that can take the hot flue gas without dilution air to simplify the flue gas handling design and to improve the economics of oxy-fuel fired glass furnace. ADVANCED OXY-FUEL FIRED FURNACE WITH A NEW BATCH/CULLET PREHEATER In Table 1, energy balances and CO2 emissions for a 410 tpd container glass furnace with 50% cullet are compared for five cases: (1) cross-fired regenerative air-fired furnace, (2) regenerative air-fired furnace with B/C preheater, (3) oxy-fuel fired furnace, and (4) oxy-fuel fired furnace with B/C preheater using dilution air, and (5) oxy-fuel fired furnace with B/C preheater without dilution air. The conversion of the state-of-the-art air-regen furnace (Case 1) to oxy-fuel firing without heat recovery (Case 3) reduces fuel consumption by 13%, from 4.23 GJ/ton to 3.70 GJ/ton. With batch/cullet preheating the fuel consumption is reduced by 14.4% to 3.62 GJ/ton for the air-regen (Case 2), while the fuel consumption for the oxy-fuel with dilution air (Case 4) is reduced by about 30% over the air-regen baseline to 2.98 GJ/ton. The actual fuel consumption demonstrated at OI-BSN was slightly lower (i.e., 2.9 GJ/ton) as the cullet ratio was higher (50 to 70%). It provides a good support on the accuracy of the energy balance predictions. With a batch/cullet preheater without dilution air the oxy-fuel Case 5 shows that the fuel consumption is reduced by 37% over the air baseline to 2.65

GJ/ton. CO2 emissions from the furnace are reduced by 27%. The overall CO2 emissions, including that from power consumption by the oxygen plant, are reduced by 19% from 324 kg/ton to 264 kg/ton. Table 1. Energy balances and CO2 emissions from 410 tpd container glass melting furnaces with 50% cullet
Case 1 Air-Regen Base None 4.23 2.15 6.38 1.94 3.60 0.84 6.38 92 232 324 324 Case 2 Air-Regen 300 3.62 1.85 0.30 5.77 1.94 3.01 0.82 5.77 92 198 291 292 Case 3 Oxy-Fuel None 3.70 Case 4 Oxy-Fuel Air dilution 427 2.98 0.44 3.42 1.94 0.96 0.52 3.42 92 163 255 30 285 Case 5 Oxy-Fuel No dilution 510 2.65 0.53 3.18 1.94 0.72 0.52 3.18 92 145 237 27 264

B/C preheat temp (oC) Natural gas (LHV) Air Preheat B/C Preheat Total Input (GJ/ton) Heat to Glass Flue Gas Wall Losses Total Output (GJ/ton) CO2 from Batch CO2 from Fuel CO2 from furnace CO2 from O2 prod. Total CO2 (Kg/ton)

3.70 1.94 1.23 0.53 3.70 92 202 294 37 331

SUMMARY About 30% fuel savings and significant reductions in CO2 emissions, as compared with a state-of-the art regeneartive furnace, have been demonstrated for an oxy-fuel fired container glass furnace equipped with batch/cullet preheating. A new batch/cullet preheater which eliminates air dilution is projected to improve the fuel efficiency further and to reduce the installed costs for oxy-fuel fired furnaces.

REFERENCES 1. H. Kobayashi and B.A. van Hassel, Reduction of CO2 emissions using Oxy-Fuel Combustion in Industrial Furnaces and Boilers, Eighth International Conference on Energy for a Clean Environment, June 27-30, 2005, Lisbon 2. Kobayashi, H., K. T. Wu, G. B. Tuson, and F. Dumoulin, and J. Bllert, Tall Crown glass Furnace Technology for Oxy-Fuel Firing, Proceedings of the 65th Conference on Glass Problems, The Ohio State University, October, 2004. 3. G. Lubitz; E.F. Beutin; J. Leimkuehler: Oxy-fuel fired furnace in combination with batch and cullet preheating. Presented at the NOVEM Energy Efficiency in Glass Industry Workshop (2000) Amsterdam, May 18- 19. 4. Schroeder, R.W., Kwamya, J.D., Leone, P., Barrickman, L., Batch and Cullet Preheating and Emissions Control on Oxy-Fuel Furnaces, 60th Conference on Glass Problems, University of Illinois at Urbana, October 19 to 20, 1999. 5. U.S. Patent 5,807,418 (September 15, 1998)

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