Since the introduction of oxy-fuel firing on large commercial glass furnaces, substantial progress has been made in emissions and energy reduction for the process. Preheating of cullet and batch is a new effective method for improving the energy performance of oxy-fuel furnaces and thereby reducing overall glass production cost. New technology, which preheats the cullet and filters out particulate from glass furnace exhaust gas, was installed at a greenfield oxy-fuel furnace at Leone Industrial in Bridgeton, New Jersey. The furnace was started up in May 1998 and the cullet preheater.filter was started up in September 1998. Full implementation of preheating will US $200000 per year on this furnace. In addition to preheating cullet, the system voltalizes organic material in the external cullet and also cleans particulate from the glass furnace exhaust gases. The cleaned gases meet the EPA new source emissions standards for glass furnaces. This paper describes the overall preheating and filtering process, the specific equipment and economic benefits at this location, and future plans for also preheating batch.
