Glass melting is an energy-intensive process that generates high temperature exhaust gas from either oxygen-natural gas or preheated air-gas flames. In air-fired furnaces, much of the exhaust gas heat loss is returned to the furnaces using regenerators to preheat inlet air. Heat lost to the exhaust gases in oxygen-fired furnaces is rarely recovered. Thermochemical recuperation provides a means to use the heat in furnace exhaust gases to partially reform natural gas fuel. The hot syngas along with preheated air or oxygen is sent to the furnace burners. Modelling and demonstration testing have shown that TCR energy recovery is significantly higher than is possible with either thermal regenerators or heat exchangers. At the lower natural gas prices currently available in North America, simple payback times for glass melter TCR systems is calculated to be under four years.
