Briquetting of recycled glass fines for energy and CO2 reduction in the glass industry

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The global glass manufacturing sector uses 140 - 220 Terawatt-hours of energy and emits 50-60 million tonnes of CO2 peryear. Manufacturing inefficiencies are such that, without intervention and increased product demand, global CO2emissions from glass making are forecast to increase by 20% by 2019. In the UK alone the glass industry produces over 3million tonnes of glass per year, using 4.5 Terawatt-hours of energy (1.4 Megawatt-hour per tonne of glass melted), andemits 2 million tonnes of CO2. The energy required for melting glass in a furnace accounts for 75% of the energyconsumption. Melting furnaces typically have 50-60% efficiency, however, the introduction of recycled glass (cullet)significantly reduces glass melting energy requirements and CO2 emissions. The availability of quality cullet is an industrywidechallenge - 20% is rejected every year and sent to landfill.We are proposing a feasibility study for a novel briquetting process that will turn rejected cullet (fines) into valuable wastematerial re-introduced into glass manufacture. The proposed technology has potential to (i) reduce the glass industry's CO2emissions by up to 8%; (ii) Secure the long term UK & global supply of cullet and (iii) reduce the industry's energy costs by4-8%. This application is for a lab based project utilising a test briquetting line, with laboratory scale glass melting and testing equipment. The project feasibility steps will be as follows: (1) exploration of the materials and binders required toachieve optimum speed and efficiency of glass raw materials melting in the furnace; (2) determining the physical, chemicaland dimensional requirements of the briquettes for manufacturing and processing purposes, and how the briquetting lineneeds to be designed to accommodate these; (3) lab scale glass melting trials to determine the effect of the briquettes inthe furnace; (4) characterisation and analysis of the resulting samples to understand the impact of the consolidated culletand binding materials on the quality of glass produced vis-a-vis energy consumption; (5) energy and cost savings analysisto determine the environmental and cost implications of each briquette permutation; and (6) Dissemination of findings.