Glass production transition to renewable fuels Carbon dioxide emissions are one of the pressing issues for energy-intensive industries.

Although hydrogen energy processes are comparatively more expensive, a gradual improvement in benefits can be expected within 5-7 years and, consequently, increased interest in such solutions in energy-intensive industries.

On 7 September at 14:00 CET, GlassTrend will host an online session entitled ‘Glass production transition to renewable fuels’, to be presented by Tilen Sever from Steklarna Hrastnik.

In 2017 Slovenian glass manufacturer Steklarna Hrastnik started a project to optimise energy conversion to replace the share of fossil fuels used for industrial glass melting with hydrogen (OPERH2).

The project introduced renewable energy sources (solar cells), the production and storage of green hydrogen gas, and the partial addition of the latter to the natural gas feed.

The system was successfully commissioned in 2020, and experimental results on a 200kg/day furnace showed a remarkable potential for energy flexibility of melting glass with hydrogen/natural gas fuel mixtures.

After the pilot scale tests Steklarna Hrastnik aims to qualify and implement hydrogen melting at industrial scale on an existing oxy-fuel furnace built in 2020 at the company’s site in Hrastnik with a capacity of 120tonnes/day, where hydrogen will on average replace 50 vol% primary fuel, resulting in approx. 20% lower GHG emissions.

For more information and registration, visit: www.glasstrend.nl/events

An exclusive interview with Peter Čas, Chief Executive Officer of Steklarna Hrastnik, was published in the Nov/Dec 2020 issue of Glass Worldwide and is available at https://www.glassworldwide.co.uk/Articles/exclusive-interview-steklarna-...