System Design to take advantage of the heat in the glass industry

© 2018 Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). All rights reserved. One of the big problems that impact the glass industries is the loss of energy produced by ovens and other devices. The necessary energy for glass fusion makes up more than 75% of the energy consumed in the manufacturing process. The choice of the techniques that allow to reduce the energy consumption or to take advantage of the energy already generated is of vital importance to maintain a competitive advantage of the enterprises. This investigation presents the prototype developed for the transportation and recovery of thermic energy generated by the ovens of the traditional glass industry. The proposed technology is based in the use of heat exchangers and accumulators that are able to resist high temperature and big amounts of gas with the aim of transporting the heat found in the chimney area to the area of further processing, instead of it being wasted. To recover the heat with the designed prototype, additional fuel is not necessary. To increase the conductivity of the heat exchangers, integrating layers of highly conductive and low-density materials is proposed. Another important result of this research is to ascertain the existence of diverse possibilities of reusing the recovered energy in the different industrial processes.

System Design to take advantage of the heat in the glass industry Academic Article in Scopus