RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF BATCH AND CULLET PREHEATING IN EUROPE-PRACTICAL EXPERIENCES AND IMPLICATIONS

Batch & Cullet preheating itself is not new. First installations in the glass industry go back until the early 80ies of the last century. But, even after first successes and significant energy savings (similar to 1418%), the demand was not increasing, due to low energy prices, investment costs, risk aversion of decision makers, and also certain shortcomings of existing systems. However, in the last years the request for this technology increased significantly and the first new installations were made. One major challenge in first generation systems was the evaporation of batch moisture in the preheater, which resulted in batch clogging and maintenance efforts and restricted the application to batch with cullet ratios above approximately 50 per cent. In order to improve the existing technology, Zippe undertook considerable R & D activities and finally initiated a pilot project, together with a major European container glass producer and a leading company in furnace design to test and prove the superiority of the modem, 2(nd) generation system. 1 In the meantime, in 2010, also another batch & cullet preheater ( 350 mt/d) was installed and first results are available. The paper will deal with these new experiences made and shall elaborate under which circumstances modem batch preheating shall be taken into account to save energy and therefore energy costs.