Environment
Heading for eco-friendly batch and cullet production Environmental protection is becoming increasingly important and has always been a top priority at Zippe. Philipp Zippe* provides a few examples of how the company contributes to environmental protection in several areas. Energy saving by waste-heat recovery
Further advances in preheating technology As many of our customers aim at reducing CO2 emissions, batch preheating is increasingly in demand, especially during the last 18 months. In 2021, an advanced mechanism was developed by Zippe’s engineers, theoretical models have been applied, and the technology is currently being tested. The objective is to develop a system that maintains the same high preheating efficiency but ensures a highly reduced dust carry-over. We aim
� Pic 1. Furnace silo with a Zippe preheater on the right.
� Pic 2. Zippe batch preheater.
to achieve this by complex modelling, testing, and improving the air and pressure flow within the system. During the pandemic two orders were placed for large scale preheaters for European container glass producers which are currently in the realisation phase (Pics 2 and 3).
Glass recycling - saving precious raw materials and reducing CO2 emission Aside from decreasing costs, saving raw materials is an important aspect of environmental protection. Therefore, Zippe specialises not only in internal, but also in external cullet (post-consumer glass) recycling. 35 years ago it installed recycling plants with Concentrated Continued>>
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Batch and cullet preheating systems have been known to the industry for more than 40 years. In 1984 Zippe Industrieanlagen filed its first patents regarding this technology, and the first preheater was installed in the same year. Initially the original preheaters were mainly so-called plate-heat exchangers and were designed for preheating cullet. Later these systems were designed to handle higher volumes of raw materials (sand, soda, etc.), and their technology became more advanced. Over decades a lot of effort has been put into coping with this challenge. Today, second generation preheating systems can run safely without material flow problems and with lower cullet ratios than in the past. Zippe has built a significant percentage of the batch preheaters in operation today. It is known throughout the industry that applying this technology can save up to 15% of the total melting energy. These systems can be implemented at greenfield sites, but also be retrofitted. Due to the increased focus on green technologies, Zippe is continuously improving this technology (Pic 1).
21 Glass International September 2021
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