Glass International October 2015

October 2015 | Vol. 38 No.9

GLASSMAN REVIEW RAZI GLASS EXPANSION GERRESHEIMER INTERVIEW

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Contents

October 2015 Vol.38 No.9

October 2015 | Vol. 38 No.9

GLASSMAN REVIEW RAZI GLASS EXPANSION GERRESHEIMER INTERVIEW

2

Editor’s Comment

3

International news

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11 Glassman review Exhibitors hail Mexican show Glass International October 2015

Company profiles 14 Razi Glass completes expansion 16 Cosmetics looks good for Gerresheimer

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19 Country overview The Philippines’ hollow glass industry

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Furnace 23 Furnaces experts strikes out alone 26 The rise of the Prium Nozzle burner

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Front cover image courtesy of www.sorg.de

28 History 30 British Glass 32 Annealing Reinvigorating flat glass lehrs

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34 Handling Heye client login is a success 35 Cullet Glass defects originating from contaminated cullet

Events world 44 Gulf Glass highlights growing Middle East region 47 Diary

Plus find us on Linked-In and Twitter.

@Glass_Int

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23

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41 Batch plant Unexplored heat recovery in the container glass industry

1 Glass International October 2015

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Editor’s comment

Greg Morris

www.glass-international.com Editor: Greg Morris Tel: +44 (0)1737 855132 Email: gregmorris@quartzltd.com Editorial Assistant: Sally Love Tel: +44 (0)1737 855154 Email: sallylove@quartzltd.com Designer: Annie Baker Tel: +44 (0)1737 855130 Email: anniebaker@quartzltd.com

Mexico’s hollow glass industry is booming

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T

hanks to all of you who attended Glassman Latin America in Guadalajara, Mexico recently. It was a pleasure to meet so many of you and I hope you enjoyed the show.

Feedback from exhibitors and visitors has been overwhelmingly positive. Many have commented on the quality of the leads made as well as the number of new contacts.

At the time the show, with its combined technical conference, exhibition, press conference and networking drinks event, certainly felt like it had a positive dynamic but it is only afterwards, when we received feedback forms from those who attended that we were able to truly gauge public opinion.

All of this proves how healthy the Mexican hollow glass market currently is, mainly due to the popularity of its beers and spirits. The success of the event was also due to our partners in Mexico and I would like to publicly thank them here.

A review of the event appears within these pages. For those of us organising the next Glassman, in Abu Dhabi in the UAE, it is all systems go. The aim is re-create a similar feel as at the Mexican event, but with a few extra add-ons. All will be revealed shortly. Anyone interested in presenting a paper at the conference should please contact me as soon as possible.

To coincide with the launch of the Middle East event we have started to publish articles related to the region. You may

have already seen the interview with Dr Ayman Khalil, Director General of Saudi Arabia’s Mahmood Saeed Glass Industry Company in the September issue.

This month we focus on the recent expansion of Iran’s Razi Pharmaceutical Glass company and talk with its managing Director Saeed Sanati. He states that it is a thriving company and is hopeful that, with the recent nuclear agreement between Iran and the West, trade will increase with Iran.

The pharmaceutical theme continues with an interview with Gerresheimer’s Head of Glass, Bruno Burkel.

The company has tapped into people’s desire to look and feel good about themselves and now produces more than a billion cosmetics glass containers a year at its Tettau and Momignies plants. He discusses the most important aspects of the cosmetics glass business and says the company’s customers are profiting from demand in North America as well as the higher disposable income in developing markets.

Another flourishing region in the glass market is the Philippines. Its container industry is the second largest in the ASEAN region after Thailand and its economy is growing rapidly. A country report is on page 19.

Greg Morris Editor gregmorris@quartzltd.com

Quartz Glass Portfolio

Monthly journal for the industry worldwide

Directory 2015 Annual international reference source

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Sales Director: Ken Clark Tel: +44 (0)1737 855117 Email: kenclark@quartzltd.com Sales Manager: Jeremy Fordrey Tel: +44 (0)1737 855133 Email: jeremyfordrey@quartzltd.com Production Executive: Martin Lawrence Subscriptions Tel: +44 (0)1737 855023 Fax: +44 (0)1737 855034 Email: subscriptions@quartzltd.com Published by Quartz Business Media Ltd, Quartz House, 20 Clarendon Road, Redhill, Surrey RH1 1QX, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1737 855000. Fax: +44 (0)1737 855034.

Email: glass@quartzltd.com Website: www.glass-international.com

Official publication of Abividro - the Brazilian Technical Association of Automatic Glass Industries

Member of British Glass Manufacturers’ Confederation

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United National Council of the glass industry (Steklosouz) Glass International annual subscription rates including Glass International Directory: For one year: UK £164, all other countries £231.

For two years: UK £295, all other countries £416.

Airmail prices on request. Single copies £45.

Glass International Directory 2015 edition: UK £206, all other countries £217.

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Glass International (ISSN 0143-7838) (USPS No: 020-753) is published 10 times per year by Quartz Business Media Ltd, and distributed in the US by DSW, 75 Aberdeen Road, Emigsville, PA 17318-0437. Periodicals postage paid at Emigsville, PA. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Glass International c/o PO Box 437, Emigsville, PA 173180437.

Glassman specialist exhibitions rotate between America, Asia and Europe © Quartz Business Media Ltd, 2015 ISSN 0143-7838

2 Glass International October 2015

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International News

EU glass recycling hits 73% The EU28 average recycling rate for glass packaging has hit the 73% mark for the first time, states data from the European Container Glass Federation (FEVE).

More than 25 billion glass containers were recycled in a bottle-to-bottle closed-loop making glass a model of the circular economy.

Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria and Germany continue to be the best performers and to record striking rates. Italy, The Netherlands and Malta improved on previous years.

However, it is Eastern Eu-

rope that is catching up as the industry begins to address the glass recycling challenges in these countries. Estonia, Slovenia, Slovak Republic and Croatia recorded promising growth rates.

The increased recycling efforts make Europe the continent with the highest glass recycling rates in the world. .

According to FEVE President Vitaliano Torno: “The high glass recycling rate of 73% shows that the glass packaging model is the best performing closed loop business model, but more resources need to be invested to improve glass

recycling even further and especially in countries lagging behind.”

“The same glass can be recycled over and over again,” commented Adeline Farrelly, FEVE Secretary General.

“We call on the European Commission to acknowledge bottle to bottle multiple recycling in the incoming Circular Economy Proposal: this is key to incentivise real and sustainably sound recycling schemes in the EU and attract investments.”

More information and detailed statistics from the FEVE website www.feve.org

Glass recycling plant opens in UK Viridor’s £25 million glass recycling plant has opened in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, and will cater to the country’s whisky bottle industry.

The plant can recycle 200,000 tonnes of glass per year, and according to Viridor is one of three glass recycling centres in the world that can accommodate such capacity.

The Newhouse, North Lanarkshire plant will aim to

ease Scotland’s reliance on imported cullet for whisky and spirits bottles and will ensure all cullet is fit to be recycled back in to the container glass manufacturing process.

The new plant will recover up to 97% of input materials and achieve up to 99% product purity. The 70,000ft2 facility has created 30 full-time jobs and houses 15 scientific eye otical sorters, x-ray sort-

ers, and 500 metres of conveyer belts.

Viridor has expanded its glass operation as part of a £357 million investment in recycling and renewable energy infrastructure in Scotland over the past two years.

Ian McAulay, Viridor CEO said: “This latest investment will help drive glass recycling and the sustainability of Scotch whisky.”

Ardagh wins Resource Recovery Award Ardagh Group has won a Resource Recovery Award for successfully recycling softening pellets at its Dongen plant in the Netherlands.

The pellets are a valuable residual waste product from the water treatment industry and are used to replace limestone as a raw material in the production of clear container glass. The award was presented

at the First International Resource Recovery Conference in Belgium, by the International Water Association (IWA).

The award recognises worldclass achievements for best practice applications, which have a positive environmental impact that benefits all stakeholders in the supply chain.

Key to Ardagh’s success was finding an environmentally

NEWS IN BRIEF

Encirc appointment

Encirc has appointed Paddy O’Doherty as site director for its facility in Derrylin, Northern Ireland, UK. Paddy will be responsible for the entire Derrylin operation and will work with Encirc’s senior management team. He will lead future investment and development programmes to optimise efficiency and increase capacity.

Paddy joins Encirc from Coca-Cola Canada’s facility in Brampton, Ontario, Canada.

Excelsius’ rental services company

German-based Excelsius has launched a second company due to increased demand for its stock of specialist heat up burners and drain equipment.

Excelsius Rental Services was set up due to an increased number of requests for use of Excelsius’ stock.

Excelsius Rental Services has already supplied equipment to several users worldwide and has the capability to assist the client with shipping and temporary import issues.

Sika takeover approval

The Swiss Federal Administrative Court has confirmed that Saint-Gobain is able to acquire all shares of Schenker-Winkler Holding (SWH). The court upheld the validity of the clause in Sika’s by-laws exempting Saint-Gobain from making a mandatory public takeover bid.

Allied designs malt whisky bottles friendly method for drying the calcite pellets before using them in the glass making furnace.

This was achieved by the development of a purpose built truck, which dries the pellets in transit between the water treatment plant and Ardagh’s production site in a CO2 neutral drying process, using only heat from the engine.

Allied Glass has developed a collection of bottles for the new range of Glen Scotia premium single malt whiskies.

The bottles have been designed to rejuvenate Glen Scotia as a premium single malt while reflecting the style of the distillery and Campbeltown single malts.

The three individual bottles, two of which are produced in white flint and one in green glass, are tall and slender in shape giving an elegant feel.

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International News

NEWS IN BRIEF

Satinal acquires Fibbi Elio’s glass division

Italian decoration company Satinal has acquired the glass division of Fibbi Elio.

In the past 30 years Fibbi Elio has handled equipment for hollow glass etching and polishing of the crystal.

All the planning activities and realisation of the equipment for hollow glass etching and accessories was incorporated into Satinal on September 1st.

Satinal said the acquisition allows it to make its chemical products for glass etching along with the equipment to do it, offering a more complete service to its customers.

AB InBev and SABMiller in merger talks

Brewing giant AnheuserBusch InBev has made a takeover move for SABMiller.

The combined value of the two firms would be at least $230bn. AB InBev’s brands include Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona, while SABMiller owns Peroni and Grolsch.

If the deal is successful, the merged company would produce one third of the world’s beer.

AB InBev said it had approached SABMiller’s board about a ‘combination of the two companies’.

However, it added that there was no certainty the approach would lead to an offer or an agreement.

www.glass-international.com

Horn commissioned by Egyptian manufacturer

German company Horn has supplied and commissioned Egypt’s El Nasr Glass & Crystal Co with a 100 tpd regenerative end-fired furnace for the production of figured glass.

El Nasr Glass & Crystal Co manufactures glass products for household, safety glass, glass wool, lamp glass, pharmaceutical glassware, automatic pressed tableware, handmade glassware, medical ampoule, glass reinforced polyester products and figured glass products.

Top 10 stories in the news This month’s most popular news items, as determined by our website traffic r 1 Ardagh wins Resource Recovery Award r 2 AGC celebrates 90 years of glassmaking at its Zeebrugge site r 3 O-I and Viridor partner up for glass recycling r 4 Saint-Gobain Sekurit to close Bhosari plant r 5 Glass recycling hits 73% in the EU r 6 Horn commissions El Nasr Glass & Crystal with regenerative furnace r 7 India’s AIGMF discusses environmental concepts during meeting r 8 Excelsius launches rental services company r 9 Glassman starts in style r 10 Gulf Glass closes its doors All full stories can be found on our website, www.glass-international.co/news

Schott to produce more glass

The Schott Group is to expand its production capacity for pharmaceutical glass due to increased global demand.

The company plans to put a new melting tank for its Type I glass named Fiolax Clear into operation at its site in Mitterteich, Germany.

The move will increase the company’s production capacity for glass tubing to more than 140,000 tons.

Fiolax glass tubing is used to manufacture vials, syringes, ampoules and cartridges.

The pharmaceutical industry then fills these with inject-

able drugs. The needs of the pharmaceutical companies for such packaging are rising because of increased regulatory pressure and stringent standards for patient safety.

Construction work on the new tank has begun and will be completed in spring 2016.

East African Breweries completes sale of glass subsidiary East African Breweries Limited (EABL) had concluded the sale of one its subsidiaries, Central Glass Industries, to South Africa’s Consol Glass

Africa.

EABL, controlled by the UK’s Diageo group, said in April it planned to sell the bottlemaking subsidiary, sub-

ject to the approval of the regulator, the Competition Authority of Kenya, and its shareholders. The sale price was not disclosed.

Be first with the news! VISIT: www.glass-international.com for daily news updates

4 Glass International October 2015

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At Home in the World of Glass

International News

Gold award for Steklarna Hrastnik furnace project

Steklarna Hrastnik has won a gold award for a technological overhaul of one of its furnaces.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia granted the company the award for its project called ‘The optimisation of the B-furnace top produce special packaging – a solution for the operation of the furnace in accordance with market demands’.

Steklarna Hrastnik was the winner, among competition from 173 companies. The award was for the overhaul of the

B-furnace in the special packaging plant in a €5 million project.

Andrej Božic, General Manager of Steklarna Hrastnik, said: “Thanks to the innovativeness of Steklarna Hrastnik employees, the use of the most up-to-date technology and the continued implementation of environmental improvements based in part on our own knowhow, we have been able to reduce our energy and water consumption, while increasing our production capacities.”

One of the main environmental improvements is the reduction of energy product consumption by 16% alongside the increased capacity of the B-furnace.

This was achieved via construction of the glass furnace and regenerators, using the waste heat of the flue gasses generated in the B-furnace to heat the water in the special packaging plant, and using the warm, clean air generated in cooling the B-furnace to heat a part of the production line in the plant.

Nampak to expand in Africa Nampak Limited has agreed with partners to build glass bottle manufacturing plants in Nigeria and Ethiopia, according to an article by Bloomberg.

It planned to take advantage of growing demand for packaged consumer goods and bottled drinks in the two countries where a quarter of Africans live.

The South Africa-based company has reached a preliminary agreement with a partner for a factory in Ethiopia and is now seeking financing for a project

with a cost of $68 million.

Nampak’s CEO Andre de Ruyter said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office that the Ethiopia site will help supply drinks makers, including brewer Heineken and soft drinks producer Coca-Cola.

Nampak has signed a memorandum of understanding with a local partner in Nigeria, identified a factory site with access to natural gas and water and started a feasibility study, Mr de Ruyter said.

The plant in Africa’s

largest economy will cost $100m and be completed in about three years.

The company also has plans for an Angolan glass factory although it is still ‘very early days’, the CEO added.

“Africa is the story for us,” De Ruyter said. “People talk about Latin America, they talk about India, China or other emerging markets, but we think the opportunity that we’ve got in Africa is so big and this is what we know we can do well.”

Glass International October 2015

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International News

NEWS IN BRIEF

Saint-Gobain Sekurit to close Bhosari plant

Saint-Gobain Sekurit India is discontinuing operations at its plant in Bhosari, India.

The Board of Directors agreed it was not economically viable to continue running the site.

Saint-Gobain Sekurit India (SGSIL) is the Indian subsidiary of Saint-Gobain Sekurit. It supplies automotive glazing and components for the global vehicle manufacturing sector.

AGC celebrates 90 years at Zeebrugge site

The AGC Glass Europe plant in Zeebrugge, Belgium celebrated 90 years of glassmaking at a ceremony attended by Geert Bourgeois, Minister-President of Flanders.

The AGC site in Zeebrugge is the world’s largest producer of mirror glass and currently employs around 210 people.

It is also home to the double-glazing activity of AGC Fabrication BelgiumSeapane, which celebrated its 40th anniversary on this occasion.

www.glass-international.com

Stölzle Medical launches webshop

A webshop has been launched

by Stölzle Medical, a StölzleOberglas business unit.

The new shop is easy to use with a clear structure. The information is supported by a concise navigation area which enables the user to find their way around quickly. The site is also supported by a large number of product images.

The Stölzle Medical business unit operates both as a producer and a distributor. Stölzle-Oberglas’s product portfolio includes primary packaging materials that are required by the pharmaceutical industry.

These include dropper, medical and syrup bottles, injection and infusion containers, tablet jars, ointment jars and wide-mouth jars. The site can be found at www.shop.stoelzle.com

Turkey’s Gürallar Cam Embalaj selects Xpar Vision Turkish glassmaker Gürallar Cam Embalaj has chosen Xpar Vision to supply its hot end technology for inspection and process monitoring.

Xpar Vision commissioned its IR-D systems on each production line during the plant startup.

Gürallar Cam Embalaj CEO, Abdullah Gayret, said: “We want to improve our efficiency and quality level in the first step for container glass

by working with Xpar Vision’s latest technologies.

“We believe that our cooperation will grow rapidly. Gurallar Cam Ambalaj will be one of the major business partners of Xpar Vision in further innovations.”

Xpar prepared Gürallar’s production team prior to startup by providing training and instruction at its own plant.

During startup and the following months an Xpar con-

sultant supported the production team to ensure optimal results.

Gürallar decided to invest in a new container glass plant in 2014. Its first furnace has a 300 tpd melting capacity and three production lines.

The plant is located at Kütahya, Turkey and is established on a 300,000m2 site.

Xpar said it was delighted to welcome Gurallar to its customer base.

Ramsey Products develops wear-resistant conveying chain Ramsey Products has developed a conveying chain that incorporates wear resistant materials while keeping the chain cost down – Ramsey’s patented R-Select chains.

R-Select chains put hardened, wear resistant chromium alloy links in the parts of the chain that are expected to wear the most. Other parts of the chain that are less subject to wear, are made with standard, heat-treated steel links.

As the chain is not made entirely of the more costly wear resistant links, the overall cost of the chain can be as

Standard links

Wear resistant alloy links US Patent No. 8,474,607

little as 20% more than the cost of a standard chain.

Almost any style of Ramsey conveying chain can be made using the R-Select process.

This includes single pin and two pin chains, chains with or without spacers, side guide, centre guide or multiguide chains.

Henry F. Teichmann appointments US-based company Henry F. Teichmann has made some upper management changes within the organisation.

Mark F. Piedmonte has been promoted to President. Mr Piedmonte has more than 33 years of experience in the glass industry, including float,

container and fibre glass.

Kevin Yung re-joins Teichmann as Vice President of Operations. He will report directly to the President and be responsible for the Engineering, Purchasing and Construction departments.

Kathleen M. Andrews has

been promoted to Vice President of Finance. Ms. Andrews has been with Teichmann for 28 years, serving as Accountant for the company for the last 25 years.

Her experience will ensure continued strength and stability throughout the company.

Be first with the news! VISIT: www.glass-international.com for daily news updates

8 Glass International October 2015

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Glass is our Passion

Glassman review

All go in Mexico

The Glassman Latin America event in Guadalajara, Mexico was declared a success by exhibitors. As well as a bustling exhibition, the event included a freeto-attend technical conference, a press conference with national and regional media, and VIP guests from the regional governments. Greg Morris reports.

He said: “The Mexican market is a thriving market that is growing. There has been significant investment in the market in the past few years and it looks like that will continue. The reason for its popularity is the exports to the USA market. Mexican beers are hugely popular there and this has caused a growing glass market here.

“In terms of the show we’re very happy. We’ve seen a lot of people, had some good meetings and have a couple of good leads that we wouldn’t have previously had, so we’re happy.”

Hans Mehl, General Director of Mexican exhibitor MGFS Glass Factory Services, said the Mexican glass industry was the strongest in Spanish speaking Latin America. “There are a lot of new projects, a lot of money being invested

and also a lot of future investment.”

While exports to the US makes up a large part of the Mexican market, there are also many consumers within Mexico.

The country’s main exports are beverages to the USA but there is also a significant amount of pharmaceutical and speciality glass exported to the rest of Latin America.

“We’ve had a very good show, we have been busy all the time and had a lot of visits from customers. It means we could finalise a lot of technical aspects for projects we are working on and also future projects. It was a good opportunity to advertise ourselves as a new company.”

Troy Gilbert, Regional Sales Manager for Polychem Corp said his company was Continued>>

xGlass experts Jose Luis Velez and Hector Garica (left and right of picture) were joined by Guadalajara city Secretary of International Relations, Mario Alberto Reynoso Ochoa (middle), for the press conference.

www.glass-international.com

E

xhibitors to the Glassman Latin America show in Mexico hailed the exhibition and conference as a resounding success.

The exhibiting companies reported plenty of high-quality visitors to their booths and said they had made a number of new leads within the Mexican and regional hollow glass markets.

Their views were echoed by many of the 965 visitors who said the show had helped open up new relationships with supplier companies to the container, tableware, speciality and hollowware glass industries.

A total of 95 international leading technology suppliers to the hollow glass industry took up exhibition space at the Guadalajara, Mexico show. They represented companies from a diverse range of countries from Europe, North America, Asia and South America.

Exhibitors reported plenty of contacts from the domestic Mexican glassmaking industry, with delegations attending from various plants around the country.

There were also visitors from glass manufacturers form the wider region, including from Venezuela, Costa Rica, Argentina, USA and Brazil.

Companies to visit the event included O-I Mexico, Fevisa, Grupo Modelo and Grupo Pavisa.

Samuel Leaper, International Sales Manager at US exhibitor E.W. Bowman, a lehr manufacturer, said the Mexican market was the second largest for the company, after the US market.

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Glassman review

The event provided the opportunity to meet and do business with Mexican companies and those from the

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wider region.

exhibiting at the show because it had seen a large upswing in the Latin American glass industry in recent months.

The company supplies strapping materials for cold end packaging. It already supplies some of the largest glass manufacturers in Mexico but was keen to become more known. In the past 18 months it had seen a 60-70% upswing in requests for information and projects.

He said: “We had a very good first day and met two new customers that we weren’t aware of who are interested in our equipment and our strapping materials. We also met some other people from Latin America that want to partner with us on maintaining and servicing the equipment.”

Marc Meersschaut, Sales Manager at German group Futronic, said the Mexican market was one full of potential.

“The show was OK, we had a lot of visitors and a lot of quality visitors.

Most were from Mexico and one from Argentina.”

Stefan Ribjitzki, Director International Sales, of German company Reckmann said: “We had a really good first day with about 25 leads, so we are pleased. The Mexican market and the South American market are increasing at the moment.

“At the moment Europe is our main market but, with the steady growth of the industry here, I expect it won’t be long before Latin America becomes our main market.”

Both a technical and a press conference took place within the show. A number of Mexican media outlets including television, and national and regional newspapers were in attendance.

They quizzed glass experts Jose Luis Velez, Managing Director of Interglass and Hector Garcia, Senior Plant Director at Gerresheimer’s Queretaro, Mexico site

about the current state of the Mexican glass industry and the benefits of glass.

Mr Velez and Mr Garcia were joined by VIP guest Mario Alberto Reynoso Ochoa, Secretary of International Relations of the Guadalajara city government, who discussed the benefits of the industry to the city. A list of media outlets that reported from the event are available from the Glass International website or by emailing the Editor.

Another VIP guest was Juan Rafael Mejorada Flores, Minister of Economic Development for Jalisco state in Mexico who officially opened the exhibition.

A total of 12 companies gave presentations at the free-to-attend technical conference made up of glass manufacturers and suppliers to the industry. Each presentation was 20 minutes long and included papers from BDF Industries, Heye International and Italian company Pneumofore.

The keynote speakers were from Mexican glass manufacturers. First to speak was Jose Huerta, Director, Glass Center of Excellence, at Grupo Modelo, who discussed the company’s roadmap

to a safety culture. The company has an excellent safety record, with 2345 days without a loss time injury and 335 days without a recordable injury.

He was followed by Geresheimer’s Mr Garica, who discussed the ‘Evolution of Quality Expectations in the Industry: A Managerial Point of View’.

He spoke about how quality has evolved from a steady status to a moving target. Quality requirements have evolved as customer demands get ever more stringent. Customers require greater reliability on the products they buy and so, as standards change, the glass business must change too.

In the past a good supplier would have a defect rate of less than 1% but as production and process control procedures have improved the expectation has increased to 0.1%, he said.

In his conclusion, Mr Garcia stated that a high level of staff training in the use of tools and methodology is key to achieving low defect rates.

Other presentations given on day one included from Fives Stein’s Erwan Legros who discussed ‘Advanced Forehearth Heating’, and UAS Messtechnik’s Florian Stadler who talked about ‘Improvement in Efficiency By Advanced Combustion & Control Solutions for Glass Furnaces’. r

www.glassmanevents.com/latin-america The next Glassman takes place in Abu Dhabi, UAE on May 10th and 11th 2016.

The event will again include a technical conference. Anyone interested in presenting a paper should contact gregmorris@ quartzltd.com. The Glassman Middle East website is www.glassmanevents.com/ mid-east/

xA total of 95 international suppliers to the hollow glass industry were represented at the exhibition, including Guadalaraja-based company Interglass (below).

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Company profile: Razi Pharmaceutical

VIPS and dignitaries were all invited to the official opening of the revamped site.

Razi Glass completes expansion The company was formed in 1993. How has it evolved since then?

The development project started up in the year 2000 in the name of Takestan Packaging Glass with production capacity of 40,000 tons per year.

How many staff do you employ and how many locations do you have?

The site (left) before and (right) after the installation.

We have 445 staff working in three different sites in Iran at: r 1) Razi Pharmaceutical Glass, Tehran. r 2) Takestan Packaging Glass, Qazvin. r 3) Behin Pooyan Sanat, Karaj.

What products do you make?

The main products are pharmaceutical and beer bottles and they are mostly produced in the colour amber. We export to Turkey and Iraq.

www.glass-international.com

What is the pharmaceutical glass market like in Iran?

There is a limited use of plastic packaging for suspension and syrups in Iran’s pharmaceutical industry, so glass bottles’ production and consumption is very stable.

You recently expanded your Tehran site. Can you describe what the project involved?

The development project aimed to increase the capacity of the old furnace from 12,000 to 27,000 tons per year. During this project the old machines were totally removed and the new ones installed.

The main goal of this project is to produce lightweight products using the NNPB process.

You worked with a number of suppliers on the project, including globally renowned companies Bucher Emhart Glass, Horn, SGS, Antonini, Zecchetti, Tiama MSC-SGC and Novopack. Do you have good relations with these companies and did you all work well together on the project?

Absolutely yes, there is a close and effective cooperation between our company and the suppliers, which has been formed during the past few years.

Continued>>

14 Glass International October 2015

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Company profile: Razi Pharmaceutical

zThe renovation project took place in just 270 days.

 The site now produces about 1 million bottles a day.

“The development project aimed to increase from 12,000 to 27,000

”

tons per year The project was completed in just 270 days. What was the reason for the rapid completion of the project?

The main reasons are: r 1) Accurate planning r 2) Supplying the machines by suppliers exact on time r 3) Know-how and technical intelligence of our group

What does the completion of the project mean for the development of Razi Glass?

The major purpose is to expand into foreign markets and to increase the amount of our exports.

There are strict health and safety rules for European pharmaceutical glassmakers. Are there strict rules in Iran for the manufacturer of pharmaceutical glass?

Definitely yes, we apply essential standards such as GMP just like European countries. Notably, this company has exported more than 100 million bottles to Italy between 2009 and 2010.

Does the political situation between Iran and some countries in the West harm you as a business?

Surely yes, the process of procuring machines was considerably slow and difficult.

What does the future hold for Razi Glass?

Takestan Packaging Glass’ Development project to increase production capacity from 40,000 to 110,000 tons per year is the priority, which is going to start up in 2017. r

Razi Pharmaceutical Glass, Tehran, Iran. www.raziglass.com Glassman Middle East hollow glass exhibition and conferencetakes place in Abu Dhabi, UAE in May 2016. For more details about the event, visit www.glassmanevents.com/mid-east

www.glass-international.com

Iran’s Razi Pharmaceutical Glass packaging company recently completed an expansion to its Tehran manufacturing facility meaning the site is now capable of producing a million bottles a day.

Managing Director Saeed Sanati spoke to Greg Morris about the company.

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Company profile: Gerresheimer

German glass manufacturer Gerresheimer is making investments in production equipment and finishing technology. Here Bruno Bürkel* discusses the company’s cosmetics business, which manufactures more than a billion containers a year at its Tettau, Germany and Momignies, Belgium plants.

Cosmetics look good for Gerresheimer  Gerresheimer has recently invested in new printing machines at its Tettau (pictured) and Momignies (inside picture) sites.

How do you see your global cosmetics business developing?

People like to feel good. They want to look well-groomed and attractive. Personally, I believe there is a global market for beauty and personal care. Market surveys confirm that there has been a 3.5 to 5% growth in demand for cosmetics and personal care products in recent years, and that trend is here to stay.

Our customers are profiting from solid growth in demand in North America and from population growth and higher disposable incomes in developing markets, where there is now demand for luxury brands in addition to mass market products.

How well is Gerresheimer’s cosmetics business doing?

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Gerresheimer’s cosmetics business is doing very well. Every year we manufacture more than a billion glass containers for our customers at our plants in Tettau, Germany and Momignies, Belgium. Last year we advanced impressively, and we’re currently the market leader in the masstige segment. Our creative glass products are also popular with selective cosmetics manufacturers, both for their designs and for their decorative finishes.

What are the most important aspects of the cosmetics glass business?

Let me ask you a question in reply: What are the consumer’s criteria for buying a fragrance?

Is the most important criterion fragrance colour or bottle design? It is interesting to see all the fragrance flacons on the shelves of a well-stocked perfume store, because it gives you an idea of just how many different design options exist. The most important buying criterion is packaging design, followed by the fragrance itself. It’s important that the bottle optimally communicates the fragrance inside because, if consumer expectations are not

met in this respect, they’ll buy a different product.

What do you have to do to keep your customers coming back?

z Mr Bruno Bürkel is Gerresheimer’s Global Executive Vice President Primary Packaging Glass.

“The most important buying criterion is packaging design, followed by the fragrance

”

itself.

Glass is a high-tech product that has to be manufactured to the highest degree of perfection, even though many people don’t actually realise that. So we always have to use modern production technology. Our customers demand the highest quality, plus sophisticated decorative finishes, to ensure their designs are as expressive as possible.

We are currently investing in new, highperformance printing machines in Tettau and Momignies so that we can continue to satisfy our customers’ requirements and deliver complex designs in perfect quality. At the moment we’re also replacing our flint glass furnace in Momignies. The new furnace has a modern, high-performance design and conforms to the latest environmental standards. Our customers in the cosmetics glass industry are discerning and demand excellent quality.

What decorative finishes and printing techniques does Gerresheimer offer?

In order to emphasise a product’s uniqueness and quality, you need an exclusive, aesthetically appealing packaging that is easily recognisable.

We’re able to offer a range of designs and colours.

We can compose any colour in flint and opal glass or use feeder colouring and colour coatings Continued>>

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Company profile: Gerresheimer

d

gifts that simply look more upmarket in a glass bottle than they do in a plastic one. Also, many fragrances and eau de toilettes are not compatible with plastic. Most personal care products come in plastic containers. It isn’t often that you see a shower gel in a glass bottle, although exclusive bath salts definitely look better if they are beautifully packaged in glass.

What makes a great perfume bottle in your opinion?

What are Gerresheimer’s strengths in the cosmetics sector?

We’re an experienced partner to our customers in the cosmetics industry. Our technology experts in Tettau and Momignies know what really matters and it’s no coincidence that some of our partnerships are decades old. Customer satisfaction is our benchmark. But we also welcome critical feedback as a challenge and an opportunity to better ourselves.

When a customer stops communicating its requirements to the supplier you can assume it’s already looking for a new one.

Are plastic containers gradually replacing glass ones in the sector?

Although you can put any cosmetic product in glass packaging, you can’t say the same for plastic. It all depends on the market segment that the customer product is destined for. A luxury fragrance needs an exclusive bottle. To some extent this is because fragrances are popular

What’s the current trend?

It’s difficult to pinpoint any one single trend when there’s so much emphasis on diversity.

That’s obvious when I look at the products we manufacture for our customers. Product designs depend on the target group and the brand image that the customer wants to project.

How do you cultivate customer relationships at Gerresheimer?

We’ve exhibited our products at a total of seven international trade fairs this year. Our customers have dedicated key account managers who are always available to take care of all their needs. Our product development and finishing technology specialists also stay in regular contact with the customers. Gerresheimer is a traditional manufacturer of cosmetic packaging products and that’s one of the reasons why our customers place their trust us. This October we’re at LuxePack in Monaco and Intercharm in Munich more or less concurrently. r

* Global Executive Vice President Primary Packaging Glass, Gerresheimer, Duesseldorf, Germany, www.gerresheimer.com

www.glass-international.com

to customer specifications. Custom finishing techniques guarantee that the packaging makes its own distinctive statement. We work with ceramic and organic-based inks in screen printing, and we’re also increasingly using UV inks. In recent years we’ve built an excellent reputation with our own spray painting production lines, and we’re also able to offer pad printing and foil embossing.

Acid etching rounds off our in-house finishing portfolio, and we still collaborate with various specialist finishing companies to complement our own techniques.

From a technical viewpoint that would be the brilliance of the glass and the perfection of the bottle’s decorative finish. From the consumer’s viewpoint it’s essential that the bottle’s design and finish match the customer’s expectations about the fragrance inside. For example, a bottle containing a sporty fragrance should look sporty, and a bottle containing an oriental fragrance should look romantic.

17 Glass International October 2015

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Country overview: Philippines

Philippines’ hollow glass industry

The 39th ASEAN glass conference takes place in the Philippines this month.

Glass International provides an overview of one of South East Asia’s fastest growing container glass markets.

Economic growth The country’s GDP growth slowed to 5.3% in the first half of the year, compared to 6.4% in the same period the previous year. This was on the back of weak global demand as well as a lack of government spending, causing minor glitches for the container glass industry.

Household consumption accelerated in the first half of 2015, driven by higher employment, low inflation and rising remittances.

Private investment also rose, but government spending was sluggish early in the year before rebounding. The rebound in government spending is expected to spur growth through the rest of this year and into 2016. Spending will also support domestic demand through May 2016, when the country’s elections will be held.

Private consumption and investment are expected to maintain solid growth in 2016.

Inflation forecasts are revised down in light of unexpectedly low inflation so far this year, averaging 1.7% in the first eight months.

All these factors bode well for the container glass industry in the coming year.

Demand Drivers With a population of 100 million, the Philippines has the second highest per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks in Asia.

While the Philippines is not ASEAN or South East Asia’s top per capita carbonate drinks consumer (Thailand with 41 litres per capita consumption leads the pack), the island nation’s 32 litres per capita is still well ahead of Asia Pacific’s average consumption of 8.5 litres per capita.

About 70% of carbonates currently consumed in the Philippines are packaged in returnable glass bottles. The bottles are often returned to retailers for a small amount of money.

This system creates a distribution network, where consumers return bottles, which retailers send back to the manufacturer.

The Philippines has one of the lowest average annual per capita consumption of beer (at about 27 litres) in Asia, but the growth of the beer industry and consumption have risen year after year.

Major brewers in the country are in the process of capacity expansions, which are expected to translate into higher demand for container glass.

Economic growth prospects and adaptation of Western habits indicate a strong potential for container glass. However, container glass producers and end user segments face a challenge in navigating distribution across the 7,107 islands that make up the archipelagic landscape.

Given the fragile nature of the industry’s products, logistics plays an important role in the country’s container industry.

Many food and beverage producers say given the conditions and wider geographical distribution, Continued>>

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T

he Philippines container glass industry is one of the fastest growing among its ASEAN and South East Asian peers, driven by record consumption of carbonated industry and alcoholic beverages.

It is touted as the second largest container glass industry in the region, after Thailand.

With its rapidly growing economy and private consumption, the country’s container glass industry is reaping dividends from the demand of quality packaging from all three major subsegments of the packaging industry.

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Country overview: Philippines

Company

Location

Installed capacity

San Miguel Yamamura Glass Corporation

Three sites

1100 TPD

Asia Brewery

Calamba

400 TPD

Anglo Watsons Glass Incorporated

Calamba

220 TPD

Arcya Glass

Makati City

160 TPD

glass packaging is not the preferred form of packaging due to the complexities associated with its handling and somewhat fragile nature.

Modern retail, which has a preference for PET and other forms of packaging, will pose a major challenge for the container glass industry in the food and beverage sub-segments in the country in future.

Traditional Filipino retailers account for more than 70% of grocery retail sales. The majority of these stores are neighborhood ‘sari saris’, which are small corner stores where Filipinos can make daily trips for groceries and other items.

Convenience stores are still relatively nascent in the country, with only 2600 outlets in 2014.

7-Eleven has a presence with about 1200 stores, but the format is still an emerging concept.

Many of these stores are limited to Metro Manila and other Luzon provinces and have yet to catch on in remote parts of the country.

zTable 1 Container glass producers and capacity in the Philippines.

San Miguel Yamamura Glass manufacturing units San Miguel has invested P450 billion ($9.95 billion) over the past seven years in new ventures and the expansion of its existing core businesses.

To expand its operations San Miguel Corporation plans to raise P33.5 billion ($740.80 million) by issuing preferred shares.

Its food subsidiary San Miguel Pure Foods Company is a consumer of container glass and is turning to overseas acquisitions as well as diversifying into the production of more value added products to boost its revenue. San Miguel Brewery, Inc. has recently obtained creditor approval to produce non-alcoholic beverages.

www.glass-international.com

San Miguel Yamamura Glass San Miguel Yamamura Packaging Corporation (SMYP) is the largest container glass producer in the Philippines and is a subsidiary of one of the largest Philippines conglomerates, San Miguel Corporation.

It is a joint venture between San Miguel Group and Japan’s largest container glass producer Nihon Yamamura, and has three production units in the country. San Miguel’s three container plants are located at Cebu, Calamba and Manila and have a combined installed capacity of 1100 TPD of glass for food, beverages, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals packaging.

San Miguel Yamamura Packaging also owns SMC Yamamura Fuso Molds Corporation. This entity is a joint venture between San Miguel Corporation, Nihon Yamamura Glass Company and Fuso Machine & Mold Manufacturing Company. The company was established in 1994 to supply the mould needs of container glass manufacturing operations.

An estimated 60% of the total output of San Miguel Yamamura Glass meets the glass bottle demand of its sister companies, which operate under the San Miguel Group.

San Miguel is a food, beverage and packaging conglomerate established in 1980 as a singleproduct brewery.

The company has transformed itself into a diversified entity with investments in the fields of fuel and oil, energy, infrastructure, telecommunications, mining and banking.

It said: “Being one of Southeast Asia’s glass

producers with modern glass manufacturing facilities, we can provide faster decision-making and product development lead-time to our customers. Our precise, glass mould production with robotics technology and computer aided designing system allows our customers to view and enhance bottle designs on the spot.

“We have a technology that allows production of one-way, environment-responsive, lightweight glass containers that are of the same quality and strength as the heavier bottles.”

San Miguel Yamamura Packaging provides packaging solutions including plastics, metal, flexible packaging, PET and paper packaging solutions to group companies and other customers of packaging.

SMYP recently entered into a partnership with Poland-based Can-Pack to form an aluminium can manufacturing business geared toward the Philippine and Asia Pacific market.

International footprint

Table 2 San Miguel

San Miguel Yamamura Glass has been seeking opportunities to enter new markets and expand.

Earlier this year it acquired Australia’s Vinocor Worldwide Direct to serve the container glass demand of the lucrative Australian wine market.

The acquisition was made through San Miguel Yamamura’s new Australian subsidiary, SMYV. Vinocor supplies wine bottle closures and customised bottles in Australia. Its product portfolio includes cork, screw caps, customised glass bottles, champagne hoods and capsules.

San Miguel Corporation President, Ramon Ang, said: “The acquisition will enable our packaging business to tap into the expanding premium wine

Yamamura Glass

Continued>>

manufacturing units.

Company Location SMYPC Mandaue Glass Plant

Cebu, Philippines

SYPMC Manila Glass Plant

Manila, Philippines

San Miguel Yamamura Asia Corporation

Calamba, Philippines

SMC Yamamura Fuso Molds Corporation

Cavite, Philippines

San Miguel Yamamura Haiphong Glass Company

Vietnam

Zhaoqing San Miguel Yamamura Glass Company

China

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Country overview: Philippines

Anglo Watsons Glass Anglo Watson Glass is located in Laguna and has a capacity of 220 TPD for the liquor industry.

Anglo Watsons Glass commenced commercial production of container glass in 1994. It directed its surplus production of bottles to other domestic liquor and food companies after initially catering to the bottle demand of its sister concern, Emperador Brandy.

During the East Asian economic crisis, the company started exporting containers to overseas markets, in the face of a decline in demand in the domestic market.

Emperador Brandy claims that it is the largest global liquor producer on a volume basis. The company sold about 35 million cases in 2014:It also acquired UK-based Whyte and Mackay in 2014: “Emperador has had the good fortune to acquire 100% of Whyte and Mackay, the fifth largest Scotch whisky company in the world. We will use the European network to distribute our products across the globe,” said a company statement.

It also later acquired a 500-hectare vineyard in Spain to produce brandy for the European markets.

With global footprints, Anglo Watsons Glass is busy meeting the increased demand of glass containers from its sister concerns.

Its parent company Alliance Global Group, Inc. (AGI) is a diversified holding company.

As well as container glass production, AGI’s main businesses are food and beverage, quick service restaurants and real estate.

AGI’s food and beverage arm is Alliance Growers Holding Incorporated, which trades

and distributes brands such as Campbell’s, Pik-Nik, Ernest and Julio Gallo (wines) and McKester’s (juices and spreads).

PIONEERS

Arcya Glass The only independent container glass producer in the country (it doesn’t have a parent company like the other container glass producers in the Philippines), Arcya produces clear glass for products, including alcoholic beverages, carbonated soft drinks, ketchup, condiments and food products.

The company says the majority of its glass containers are produced to customer specifications but it also produces generic bottles for various applications.

Arcya Glass’s 160 TPD manufacturing plant is located at Calamba in Laguna, approximately 50km south of the capital Manila.

in Pressure Testing

Asia Brewery Asia Brewery’s 400 TPD container glass plant is located at Cabuyao (45km southeast of Manila).

Located in close proximity of company’s 4 million hectoliters brewery, the fully automated glass plant meets most of the container glass demand of this brewery.

As well as the brewery, the glass plant also meets the demand of the company’s El Salvador brewery (20km west of Cagayan de Oro City, in Misamis Oriental), which has a capacity of approximately 2 million hectoliters of beer a year.

Asia Brewery Inc. is owned by the LT Group, Inc., a publicly-listed company owned by millionaire, Lucio Tan. The group also produces non alcoholic beverages and food products. LT Group has set aside close to P10 billion to expand its businesses this year.

Most of this will go towards expanding the capacity of its beverage arm Asia Brewery Inc. The factory will be operational by the middle of 2016. 

The 39th ASEAN glass conference takes place in Cebu, the Philippines between Oct 19-22. It is hosted by the Glass Manufacturers of the Philippines. www.aseanglass.org

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markets in Australia and New Zealand.

“Vinocor will complement our current packaging operations, the Cospak Group, in both countries.”

It is San Miguel Yamamura’s second acquisition of an Australian packaging company, after its 2009 acquisition of Sydney-based Cospak Group, which is one of the largest packaging trading firms in Australasia.

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Interview: Alain Grangeret

z Alain working on site at a project.

Furnaces expert strikes out alone Alain Grangeret has been a recognised industry figure for many years now, well-known within the furnaces industry and a regular speaker at the Furnaces Solutions event. He recently set up his own consultancy business and here he explains why to Sally Love.

Can you give me an overview of your career so far?

What services does AG Gas deliver to the glass industry?

AG Gas delivers consultancy and hands-on work for furnace and forehearth heating requirements. I also provide consultancy for energy conservation as well as environmental issues.

I have been involved in various technical areas during my engineering career, and my experience has given me the opportunity to participate from the design stage to the point of commissioning.

î ś Fig. 1: A mixed gas oil burner.

Can you describe a typical project for AG Gas, such as at what stage a company would call you in?

I carried out a successful freelance project for BSN Glasspack (now O-I), which involved designing a mix oil/gas-firing burner with low NOx performance (Fig. 1).

It was a co-development project with the company, as the burner had to fit the existing ancillary equipment for cost limitation. It was an on-site piece of work, where I managed the Continued>>

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I started my career in 1994 as maintenance and commission engineer for Veolia, the energy utilities group in France.

I moved to Scotland in 1996 where I completed a second degree in Energy Engineering, while at the same time working for the combustion company Laidlaw Drew. Thereafter, I worked as a contractor for various glass and mineral industries.

I joined Arc International in 2008 as a Combustion Expert, up until the buyout this year

by PHP. I am now in the process of setting up my own consultancy business for the glass industry, as well as operating as a Gas Safe Engineer in London.

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Interview: Alain Grangeret

project from the design board up to the retrofit and emission control. I’m keen to carry out similar projects under my new venture.

Do you deal solely in the glass industry, or does AG Gas cater to other industries as well?

As mentioned, I am a qualified Gas Safe Engineer and I am also involved with medium size steam boilers. I have found that these disciplines/areas have opened up opportunities that fall under my field of expertise.

I also do contract work for a company in Newbury, UK regarding Research & Development projects in flame spectrometry. Some future plans include operating as an agent for the German Company SVA-Hilden.

I’ll provide endoscopy surveys for the glass and other process industries utilising their furnace endoscopy equipment.

ANNEALING LEHRS

Do you place any emphasis on companies using ‘green’ technologies?

There is limited use of green energy such as wind, solar or biomass within the glass industry, however there is certainly a serious commitment to emissions control and reduction.

What geographical markets do you serve – is it just the UK? My Gas Safe Engineering business is solely focused on the UK market. However, my expertise within the glass industry is operating on a worldwide basis.

HOT-END COATING

Can you tell us a highlight of your career?

I really enjoyed the time when I carried out physical modelling and compared the results with the early stages of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). It was good to gain experience of using the two techniques for furnace design. I was also able to publish an article with Arc International prior to working for them. The work is still very relevant for furnace design today.

What would you change about your career?

I have enjoyed my career to date and look forward to further developing my interests and knowledge in the field of combustion. The time I spent at Arc has been beneficial for the development of my experience with tableware and clear glass production. I regularly keep up to date with advancements in our industry and I enjoy being hands on, working on site.

COLD-END COATING

What are the current glass industry challenges and opportunities?

Taking into consideration that glass production is a high energy consuming process, I think it is a challenge to add and/ or modify equipment against requirements that are driven mainly by glass quality output and not necessarily energy cost.

Switching to different fuels or using a mix melt furnace design, (which can provide adequate flexibility during a furnace campaign), depends on the plant location and associated energy costs. We also need to bear in mind the low or high pull requirements during the furnace campaign.

Environmental emission regulations and post treatments are costly and I have found the technical requirements to be more complex and challenging compared to other industries. 

AG Gas London, UK aggaslondon@gmail.com Glass International October 2015

Belt Cleaning Brush • Belt and spindles tempering lines • Decorating lehrs • Chemical tempering ovens • Roller annealing lehrs • Mold pre-heating kilns • Stackers + cross conveyors • Scraper conveyors • Cullet crushers • Thermal shock test systems Contact us: vidromecanica@vidromecanica.com

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Furnaces

The rise of the Prium Nozzle burner Practical experience combined with research has helped to advance the Fives Prium Nozzle burner. It brings benefits in terms of improved glass quality and fuel efficiency. Erwan Legros discusses.

Nozzle mix burners

T

hese types of burners accomplish the mixing of the air and gas at the burner. Up to the burner head the air and gas are kept separate, lower gas and air pressures may be used in the system and there is no chance of flash back.

Nozzle-mix burners have a greater turn down than other burner types and can also use preheated air.

As the preheated combustion air is kept separate there is no chance of overheating the gas controls.

The Prium Nozzle mix burners, which can be combined with the Prium Recuperative Heat recovery system to provide maximum fuel savings, are constructed from stainless steel components.

The Prium Nozzle mix burner system can be designed to suit the customers’ requirement and can be combined with one of several types of Fives-designed burner block to deliver efficient thermal heat transfer to the area where the heat is required.

VSF Combustion & Proportional Air/Gas Flow Control Air and gas controls and safety equipment are similar to premix burners using a Variable Speed Fan Combustion (VSF) pioneered by Fives Stein. Although as there is no pre-mixing of the gas and air safety heads are not required.

Proportional combustion air and gas control has been designed to provide an accurately controlled air-gas ratio over the full firing range and allows the use of preheated air.

This ensures that the air-gas ratio is fixed, whatever the firing rate. The air is supplied by a variable speed fan that provides a supply of combustion air directly to the burner and is proportional to the control system output, while using the minimum amount of power.

The air flow is measured with an orifice plate and this flow is used to control the gas flow. The system has been designed to be compliant with the relevant EU and US safety standards. Each zone has its own double block safety shut-off valves on the

gas supply and the air system is designed to ensure proof of flow.

Flat flame burner blocks The flat flame burner block is designed to work in conjunction with nozzle mix burners.

The burner block has been designed to the exterior dimensions of a standard forehearth burner block which normally holds three pre-mix burners. The flat flame burner block has advantages that have been designed into it, giving a more efficient thermal transfer from the flame to the glass and forehearth.

Fives has developed an exclusive burner block which is currently submitted for EU and US patent protections.

In combination with the Prium Nozzle Mix burner, the Prium burner block delivers enhanced heat distribution within the forehearth chamber thereby increasing glass surface temperatures by up to 40C for the same quantity of fuel through a conventional FH burner/ burner block configuration.

Continued>>

Fig 1. The Prium Nozzle Mix burner & simple

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burner block.

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Furnaces

Benefits a

b

z Fig 2 a and b. The modelling results showed a 40°C increase in temperature for the same output of gas.

In certain circumstances several of the forehearth heat and heat/cool zones may be constructed with a modified exhaust area in order to incorporate a recuperator.

The waste gas exhausting at the far end of the zone through a vertical flue and passing through the recuperator where the combustion air is preheated, resulted in fuel savings of 15% or more.

Recuperation is the process of preheating the combustion air by using the waste flue products.

Although recuperation has been used in industry in various forms for many years, its use in small production situations such as forehearths has only recently become viable due to high fuel costs.

The recuperator uses a stainless steel tube on the flue outlet with a larger tube sited around it.

The area between the inner and outer tubes allows for free circulation of the cold combustion air (at approx. 40°C) but is sufficiently restricted to enable the heat conducted through the inner tube to heat the air to the desired preheat temperature (approximately 300°C to 500°C) by the time the air exits the recuperator and flows to the burner head. The passage of the hot combustion products flowing through the inner tube is similarly restricted to allow sufficient heat penetration.

It is important not to exceed the working temperature of the stainless steel.

A refractory base or longer section is used to absorb the initial high temperatures and this also prevents direct radiant heat loss from the forehearth to

the recuperator.

Experience has shown that over a period of time a coating of products produced by the glassmaking process tend to accumulate on the inner tube surface.

Fives incorporates a small reservoir underneath the flue outlet to gather these products rather than allow them to block the zone outlet.

Fives is experimenting with the addition of simple inserts inside the inner tube to improve efficiency.

Air piping from the recuperator to the burner head has a large cross sectional area to cope with the expansion of the cold air as it is heated. This can be up to 40% at typical temperatures.

Fives Stein, Didcot, UK www.fivesgroup.com

Hot air output (300°C)

Air input Gas input Cold air output 40°C)

 Fig 3. The Prium FH Recuperative Burner system.

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Recuperative burner system

The benefits of the Prium Nozzle Mix burner and Flat Flame burner block with a recuperative exhaust include a 10% gas reduction in comparison to the premix burner and standard burner block for the equivalent heat input and temperature distribution. There is a further 15% reduction in gas consumption using preheated combustion air from the zone recuperator.

According to the company, the advantages of the Prium Nozzle Mix Burner system include increased turndown and extra safety as gas is only mixed with the air or oxygen at the nozzle.

It can be combined with the Prium Flat Flame burner block to enhance thermal distribution and energy savings and can also be combined with recuperative exhaust to preheat the combustion air, thereby further reducing gas consumption.

It can be oxygen enriched to give extra heat input to a zone (useful for colourant sections, high temperature production and/or lines with long residence times).

It can also be converted to full oxy-gas firing (not available with Prium Flat Flame burner block). But whatever combination the result is a more responsive forehearth offering with better thermal homogeneity and improved glass quality, while at the same time delivering higher throughput. r

27 Glass International October 2015

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History

Prof. John Parker Turner Museum of Glass and ICG

Counting calories Prof Parker* investigates the history of furnaces and the raw materials required to achieve ever-increasing efficiency gains.

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F

or millennia glass melting furnaces were wood fired. Plant and wood ash was also the primary alkali source in the Middle Ages.

Glassmakers needed 10 tons of wood per ton of glass – some estimates are even 10 times higher. In spite of attempts at sustainability such as coppicing, forestry destruction in the UK in the 16th century was so great that the government had to introduce restrictions. Timber for an efficient navy was more important.

The fuel heated the glass batch indirectly by radiation and convection from hot combustion gases. The batch was first fritted at 900˚C then melted.

Wood burning furnaces could at best achieve 1350˚C. Batch rich in flux (ash) needed lower temperatures but reduced product quality. Potash rich ashes needed higher temperatures than soda ash based materials. Accepted wisdom was that branches which fitted between thumb and first finger maximised efficiency.

Heat recovery was rudimentary e.g. using a top stage for lower temperature annealing and placing fresh wood on the furnace roof to dry.

An early Middle Eastern tradition was to use larger and hence more efficient furnaces that supplied easily transportable raw glass for re-working.

Technological developments in the UK meant coal (plus some shale oil) became the next energy vector and led to the banning of wood-firing in 1615. Coal had been extracted even before Roman times from near surface sources including simple drift mines but deep mining expanded rapidly after the 16th century.

A twist was that miners themselves competed for wood, as props for passageways. By 1860, for timber to have matched the energy content of mined coal, almost all of the UK’s agricultural land would have had to become woodland.

Coal firing meant shorter flames and required a greater draft to supply sufficient air. Furnaces were redesigned, adding taller stacks (cones) and grates to support the fuel. Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopedia (1772) comments on the resulting efficiency gains: a British furnace produced as many bottles in 12 days as an equivalent French furnace in 15!

By the 19th century developments in chemistry led to coal gasification either as town gas (principally methane and carbon monoxide made by heating coal anaerobically) or the more economical but less calorific producer gas (CO by an exothermic reaction with an air deficiency). Such fuels were more uniform and controllable. New furnace designs followed and multipot furnaces became tanks. The Siemens furnace, still the workhorse of glass production, appeared in the mid 1800s. It offered continuous melting using producer gas, generated on site. Its efficient regenerative heat recovery system increased combustion air temperatures, preheated the fuel and gave faster melting rates.

Producer gas became the staple of glass making, until eventually increased crude oil refining meant heavy fuel oil became available as a cheap by-product.

Thick tar at room temperature, it was preheated to above 100˚C for pumping and firing through burners.

It also contained significant impurities e.g. sulphur, a factor in its demise as society faced problems such as acid rain and other components e.g. vanadium that degraded the furnace refractories.

In the UK in the 1970s, later than elsewhere, natural gas from the North Sea became widely available. As a premium fuel it reduced pollution although CO2 is perhaps not the benign by-product once assumed. Heavy fuel oil was displaced, just as oil had undermined coal, and coal, wood. Furnace temperatures reached

1600+˚C and production rates rose accordingly. Significantly, natural gas has flames of naturally low luminosity.

Combustion engineers had to develop burners and combustion systems that encouraged luminosity and efficient heat transfer. The 20th century also saw electricity introduced. Glass melts are moderate conductors and an AC current allows Joule heating.

All-electric furnaces have been around since the early 1900s and are still used for specialist applications.

Electric boosting of tanks is widespread, allowing extra output on demand, without increasing superstructure temperatures or pollution. By generating the energy input strategically in the melt flows, efficiencies near 100% are feasible.

An example of this has been the development of electric forehearths which cool the melt quickly to forming temperatures while maintaining a uniform gob temperature. A recent advance is oxyfuel combustion. It increases efficiency because waste gases no longer contain hot nitrogen and reduces stack NOx, generated by high temperature combustion.

The availability of energy affects the economic health of a country and its glassmakers. Large and rapid increases in its cost in the 1970s and now in the 2000s triggered recessions. History tells us that energy shortages and environmental pressures will continue to be major drivers. Since most green energy is electrical the glass industry will have to adapt to use more. But glassmakers have always achieved more from less, and the 10:1 fuel to product ratio of four centuries ago is now 1:10 or better, approaching, but not at, a theoretical limit. r

*Curator of the Turner Museum of Glass, Sheffield University, UK. www.turnermuseum.group.shef.ac.uk Email j.m.parker@sheffield.ac.uk

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British Glass

British Glass

Glass health and safety training In an industry first, British Glass is launching two glass industry-specific IOSH health and safety courses. Developed in partnership with industry, members and key stakeholders, these courses are tailored to the real operations, hazards and risks encountered in the glass industry.

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T

hese courses were developed under The Glass Academy learning and development initiative, and provide employers with tailored, accessible, training relevant for their employees.

The Glass Academy project was launched under the UK government employer ownership scheme, which aims to upskill industry and counter the growing skills gap facing the UK economy.

Soon after its launch, the academy identified Health and Safety learning as a key priority alongside a number of key technical and soft-skills for which employers had few choices and limited accessibility to suitable training options.

The new health and safety courses are a first for industry and offer employers effective, low-cost and flexible training options to ensure that appropriate skills are accessible for their entire workforce – whether they are operatives, linemanagers or senior management.

Chris Sorsby (pictured), IOSH Training Project Lead, said of the courses: “The unique position of British Glass allowed us to consult with our members, work with regulators and our own committees and draw upon industry incident statistics to develop courses that are not only relevant to the processes across our sectors but are designed to fit with how the industry operates. Courses are available online, in the classroom and on-site – with flexibility to accommodate a variety of shift patterns.”

Bespoke glass industry offering While the core IOSH syllabi must always be covered, these courses are tailored so that the content, examples, scenarios

and case studies are based around common situations, processes, hazards and associated risks found in the glass industry. We would like to thank many of our members who allowed filming of their processes and workplaces in order to bring these scenarios to life and ensure that imagery is from real-world scenarios.

The courses include an emphasis upon key hazards such as burns, stacking, handling and moving goods, glass, sharp objects and cuts, silica, nuisance dusts and specific scenarios relevant for flat glass, container glass and recycling operations.

Collaboration In developing the sector specific courses, the training team worked in collaboration with a number of glass manufacturing plants to fully understand the hazards and challenges that the industry and employees face.

The collaboration further builds upon the work of the industry in health and safety through its renowned Glass Charter Health and Safety Initiative – a collaboration across all glass sectors and between British Glass, the Glass and Glazing Federation (GGF) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which has led to significant reductions in workplace injury since its initial launch in 2001.

These well-established networks of health and safety professionals, long-term accident and incident data, collaborative consultation and the collective knowledge and experience gained provided the ideal recipe for effective, industry-led, industry-developed, tailored training for the specific needs of employees within the glass industry.

The working safely programme can be provided as both classroom and e-learning options in order to allow maximal accessibility. E-learning can be carried out at a time, location and pace that suits the individual, catering for all capabilities, shift-patterns and around other commitments.

In addition, with another industry-first, the learning portal is a first-of-its-kind allowing not only the course learning, but also the examination itself to be taken online.

Training with British Glass British Glass, as The Glass Academy, offers a comprehensive range of training aimed at glass operations – including essential core glass skills, but also a range of socalled ‘soft skills’ that are not always easily accessible to the industry.

These include accredited project management disciplines including APM and PRINCE2, sales skills, IT and Microsoft Office, human resources, business cases and analysis.

For our international clients, some of these are available online in a range of languages.

These training options are open to all organisations – interested employers should contact British Glass for further information or to discuss the options and training available to them. r

Please contact British Glass by telephone on +44 (0) 114 290 1850, email info@ britglass.co.uk or visit www.britglass.org. uk/training.

30 Glass International October 2015

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THE WORLD’S NUMBER ONE ANNEALING LEHR AND TIN BATH SOLUTIONS PROVIDER IMPRESSIVE YIELD PERFORMANCE IN FLOAT AND HOLLOW GLASS COMBINED WITH EFFICIENT ENERGY CONSUMPTION Cnud Efco has been building annealing lehrs and tin baths roofs for the float and hollow glass industry since 1958. We offer high quality technical solutions in terms of engineering and equipment.

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CNUD-EFCO CHINA CNUD-EFCO TRADING (BEIJING) LIMITED COMPANY ROOM 1805 BLOCK D, FANGHENG INTERNATIONAL, 6 EAST FUTONG ROAD, BEIJING P.R. CHINA 100102 T: +86(10) 84 78 30 50 M: +86 13 70 12 85 460 E: LAN.JIANG@CNUDEFCO.COM

Annealing

Reinvigorating flat glass lehrs The first flat glass lehr with a steel construction was built by CNUD EFCO in 1962. After 53 years, innovation is still possible and even necessary. Dr Hans Strauven* reports.

S

teel lehrs use stainless steel heat exchangers for temperature and corrosion reasons. Today, stainless steel heat exchangers can be improved with a ceramic coating.

This ceramic coating can also be used to extend the lifetime of electrical heating elements. Although the energy consumption in the convection zone is limited, a saving of 0.5% of the total primary energy consumption is possible by improving the design of convection zones. Changing production to a new load, ribbon width or thickness can be a difficult and costly operation.

However, a confident lehr simulator can reduce the cost of these changes.

On top of that, operators can train themselves with the simulator in the same way aviation pilots are trained. The following article discusses these topics in more detail. In a previous paper in Glass International1 the fundamentals of the annealing of glass was discussed. In the first part of the lehr after the tin bath (float glass) or glass waltz (rolled glass), it is important to cool the glass as fast as possible to 540째C (soda lime glass) with radiation to air cooled heat exchangers.

This procedure gives the lowest residual stress and an improved surface because the glass touches the rollers in a harder state. Radiation between glass

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Standard float

Glass

and heat exchanger depends on the emissivity of the (stainless) steel.

Stainless steel is chosen for its corrosion and temperature resistance but as it has a low emissivity, it behaves too much like a mirror instead of an absorber. Emissivity is a surface property, which can be changed by a thin (50mm) coating on the steel. However, this coating must be a perfect match on the stainless steel, resisting a minimum 15 years of temperature recycling and corrosion.

EMISSHIELD is such a ceramic coating, resisting the harsh environment of a lehr if applied according to strict procedures.2

Improvement An improvement of double glazing is coating the glass panes with a thin low emissivity layer. This coating can be done off-line or on-line. In the latter case, the glass is a poor radiator in the lehr, inducing a serious lengthening of the lehr in the past.

Today, we are able to compensate the low emissivity layer on the glass by applying Emisshield on the heat exchangers. In this way, a reduction in the investment for the lehr building can be obtained.

Producing ultrathin glass with the float glass process always induces a thick edge

Low E glass/TCO

Emisshield

Zone A - Improved flatness - Improved surface

Heat exchanger

Zone A,B - Improved control - Less breakage

Ultra Thin glass

Roller

Radiation

Zone A,B and C - Improved cooling borders - Less breakage - Larger width - More difficult glass possible

on the glass ribbon. As a consequence, the length of the lehr depends in the first place on the thickness of the edge.

Improving the side heat exchangers above the ribbon edge with Emisshield reduces the length of the lehr.

This is particularly interesting for the annealing of some electronic glasses with a higher thermal expansion coefficient.

The above-patented applications of improved heat exchangers are shown schematically in Fig 1.

It is well known that float glass producers are injecting large amounts of SO2 in the lehr to treat the glass surface. However, this SO2 corrodes the heat exchangers and especially the heating elements. Even shielded heating elements, expensive and difficult to source, can have a limited lifetime in case of high SO2 concentration up to 1200ppm for ultrathin glass.

Emisshield coating reduces the temperature of the heating coil for the same radiated power and protects the heating wire against corrosion. In this way, coated heating coils (patented) can be an alternative for shielded heating elements. Fig 2 shows a typical application on an ultrathin glass lehr.

It was also observed that even melted glass does not stick on the coated wire, showing another important property of this ceramic coating.

Cooling Below 400째C, natural convection to ambient air and forced convection are used to cool the glass down to 70째C. Forced convection is used to limit the length of the lehr but involves a lot of electrical power, required for the fans.

On top of that, these fans introduce a lot of noise on inlet and outlet. But with intelligent design, the required power, and therefore the generated noise, can be reduced. By investing in more steel and labour, it is possible to work with

zFig 1. Improved heat exchangers with Emisshield.

Continued>>

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Annealing

 Fig 2. Coated

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heating element on an ultrathin glass lehr.

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By taking absolute care about the section of ducts, avoiding velocity changes, using curves and reducing turbulence at the nozzles to a maximum, it is possible to save 0.4% on the total primary energy needed to produce float glass.

On top of that, after installing acoustic absorbers in the ducts, it is possible to construct lehrs with only 80 dB noise at a 1m distance. Fig 3 shows a forced convection zone which is built according to the above specifications about energy saving and noise control.

The correct design of a lehr starts with a precise calculation of the temperature of the ribbon during the cooling. Once the temperature evolution is known, residual and temporary stresses can be calculated. These programmes, including the interaction with heat exchangers and forced convection on the glass, are certainly not an innovation. But thanks to the internet, it became easy to make the lehr calculation available with a browser for simulation. The calculation can also be available for simulations by the operators and production managers to prepare production changes.

Even after 53 years and the construction of 500 lehrs around the world, it is still possible to improve glass quality, reduce energy, increase safety and to make a lehr more user-friendly by introducing technology currently available.  (1) Hans Strauven, Glass International, May 2013, p19.

*Subject to technical specification, terms and conditions System 500 forehearths and distributors are offered with guarantees covering temperature stability, thermal homogeneity and fuel consumption.

Are yours?

(2) Emisshield (www.emisshield.com) is represented exclusively for the glass industry beyond melting furnaces by CNUD EFCO International (www.cnudefco. com) and has all the certificates to construct and coat (stainless) steel constructions.

*R&D manager CNUD EFCO, Zellik, Belgium. www.cnudefco.com

PARKINSON-SPENCER REFRACTORIES LTD Holmfield, Halifax, West Yorkshire, UK. HX3 6SX Tel: (44) (0) 1422 254472 • Fax: (44) (0) 1422 254473 Email: admin@parkinson-spencer.co.uk • www.parkinson-spencer.co.uk

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z Fig 3. Forced convection zone working at 80dB.

performance where the glassmaker needs it most.

33 Glass International October 2015

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Feature

Handling

Heye client login is a success I n the middle of 2014 Heye International implemented a client login service on its website, which made available operating manuals, software updates and spare part lists for its customers.

This central point for equipment documentation offers its users several benefits including operating manuals that provide an insight into the handling of equipment, spare part lists to simplify ordering of the necessary spare parts and software updates guarantee latest data availability at any time.

Customers can upload files and data themselves that can then be retrieved by Heye staff.

Customers have said appreciate the facilitation of daily work by this system. It has become extremely popular and enjoyed huge interest among its users.

Heye has also successfully tested and approved a new customer service tool for the handling of return shipments.

Each return procedure gets a Heye ticket number. By this ticket number, each returned article can be related to its consignor and processing time is reduced.

Here again, Heye has set up an area on his website that customers can visit to get a ticket number. r

Mark Ziegler, Heye International, Obernkirchen, Germany. www.heye-international.com

The Global Option for Services to the Glass Industry

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34 Glass International October 2015

heye int.indd 1

www.glass-international.com

www.glass-international.com

z Landing page website.

z Login area

00 Glass International October 2015

10/5/15 2:35 PM

Cullet

Glass defects originating from contaminated cullet Despite vast improvements in the quality of recycled cullet, contamination still lurks in the material. J Terry Fisk* outlines how polarised light microscopy can help identify the defects.

the glassmaking process, so that if and when a quality ‘upset’ does occur it can be understood and rectified.

Once a baseline has been established for solid inclusions, a laboratory technologist can quickly recognise the unusual defects and provide the information to furnace operations personnel.

Batching and melting departments can then focus their efforts on finding the cause or change that led to the upset.

This in turn may indicate a suspected cullet shipment that may need to be investigated further to provide proof to confirm the root cause of the upset.

Base case The usual background level of 1–10% glass loss for stones can include a variety of substances from an equally wide variety of source/mechanisms.

It is nearly impossible to provide a thorough list of the possible background stones here because of the many permutations with regards to the broadranging industry, encompassing many glass chemistries, furnace designs, refractory compounds and forming methods used throughout the world of glass production.

The following list is a generic one that does not go into specifics: r Incomplete melting of batch materials – usually silica batch stones. r Refractory or heavy mineral contaminants in raw materials. r Glass refractory interactions – corrosion interface layers and alteration products. r Refractory erosion – surfaces, joints and exposed corners.

r Refractory spalling – usually due to thermal shock or physical constraint. r Air surface volatilisation – B2O3 and alkali loss resulting in ‘silica scum’ stones. r ‘Cold glass’ devitrification – crystallisation of a glass due to subliquidus temperatures. r Process-related contaminants – metal/oxide inclusions from batch handling equipment, screw feeders, burner tips, electrodes, thermocouples and stirrers.

The upset condition Considering the glass melting process usually contributes a number of ‘usual’ background stones and knots even during an upset, melting/forming personnel will need to ensure that the laboratory has a good selection of specimens to evaluate.

An analysis of defects, whether it be for baseline monitoring or for a quality upset investigation, should be started with an absolute minimum of 20 specimens.

Include samples that cover the full size and colour range of defects that have occurred.

This will ensure that the one or two types of defect that are truly associated with the upset will be captured and included in the evaluation.

Once the analysis is done and the information communicated back to melting/forming then some evaluations of the process with respect to recent changes must be undertaken.

For example, if the major stones comprising the upset were from batch or Continued>>

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I

n spite of recent improvements in the quality of post-consumer recycled cullet there may still be unwanted materials lurking in the cullet that may be detrimental to glass quality.

Cullet from in-house manufacturing processes is not without its own problems, but cullet from foreign, external recycling sources may harbour many additional contaminant species.

The contamination may have been part of the glass itself as well as something that was added later during shipping or storage. Certain contaminants may cause defective inclusions such as bubbles, stones and knots.

This paper deals with the solid inclusion varieties and excludes the gaseous defects.

It is nearly impossible to manufacture glass that is entirely free of a low frequency of defects.

There are tree broad categories of defects in the glass: gaseous (bubble, blister, seed and airline); vitreous (cord, ream, and knot); and solid inclusion defects (crystalline ‘stone‘ and metal/ oxide inclusion).

Identification of stone and knot defects and their sources first requires an evaluation of actual defect samples by petrographic analysis using transmitted polarised light microscopy (PLM).

This may also be supported by qualitative compositional analysis using scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX).

Routine laboratory evaluations of glass defects and the charting of those results helps in setting a ‘normal’ baseline for defect levels and allows a monitoring of

35 Glass International October 2015

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Cullet

z Fig 1A. Chromite Inclusion in glass; original magnification 150X.

z Fig 1B. SEM micrograph of chromite inclusion in glass, cross-sectioned and polished; original magnification 300X.

Cursor= Vert=350

Window 0.005 - 40 955 =25 235 cnt

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 Fig 1C. EDX spectrograph collected from core region of chromite stone. refractory sources then engineers should look for changes in furnace operating temperatures, hot spot movement, changes in fill or pull rate and minimum residence time.

But if the upset was due to ‘unusual’ stones then the questions should be geared toward evaluating the timing of the upset and arrival of new shipments and incorporation of raw materials or cullet. Was there a supplier change? Did the supplier make a change in his process?

Is there anything out of line with regards to chemistry or size distribution of those materials?

The following list includes some of the cullet contaminant materials that the author has recently encountered as glass defect sources. r Clay/Ceramic (coffee mugs, pottery); r Pyroceram (high temperature glass-ceramic products); r Carborundum (silicon carbide abrasives); r Corundum (alumina abrasives,

refractory raw materials, sand blasting media.); r Metals (aluminium alloys and any of the non-ferromagnetic stainless steel alloys); and r Recirculated refractory stones (chromite, fuse cast AZS, bonded AZS, high alumina, zircon and tin oxide).

Cullet contamination The above analyses and process evaluations may indicate that the most likely cause for the current glass defect quality issue has been delivered, as it were, concealed within a cullet shipment.

Now it is time for the laboratory technologist to go back to work to hopefully confirm or deny that as the possible source of the upset.

Finding a contaminant in cullet may be like searching for a needle in a haystack but it can be done.

The range in particle size of the cullet only helps to make the situation worse.

Manually sorting out oddities and abnormally coloured pieces may help to

isolate foreign materials such as pottery, Pyroceram, grinding discs, tools and soda cans.

The author has sometimes resorted to using the ‘panning for gold’ technique assisted by water and an upturned Frisbee to isolate smaller and denser foreign materials such as Carborundum, Corundum and metals.

Unfortunately, it can be timeconsuming and difficult to find and isolate refractory stones that may be encased within the glass pieces as a result of the original manufacturer’s glass quality upset having been segregated and sold for recycling.

In this event there may be some high level discussions with the company or consortium that supplies the cullet.

PLM analysis will need to be performed on any suspicious particles that have been isolated from the cullet samples.

Larger chunks and any stones that might have been found encased within the glass pieces will require thinsectioning to facilitate the analysis.

Smaller grains may be examined directly after having been placed on a microscope slide and covered with a suitable immersion liquid.

SEM/EDX analysis may also be conducted on suspicious particles to evaluate their composition.

Whatever the result, the final part of the investigation is to ask the thousand dollar question: “Does the size and chemistry of what has been found in this cullet make sense with respect to that of the stone or knot defects in the ware?”

Continued>>

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Cullet

z Fig 2A. PLM photomicrograph of clay-ceramic stone after thin-sectioning;

z Fig 2B. Pottery shard isolated from the cullet supply; thin-sectioned; original

original magnification 60X.

magnification 100X.

 Fig 3A. Corundum alumina stone in soda lime container glass; thin-sec-

 Fig 3B. Fused brown alumina grains from cullet samples; original magnifi-

tioned; original magnification 100X.

cation 100X.

Case studies

www.glass-international.com

Chromite stones in soda lime ovenware This was actually an instance where the chromite stones were being generated in-house by failing refractory blocks in the melter section of the furnace and the resultant stones were being returned to the furnace as re-circulated cullet.

The problem is that chromite is a refractory substance and can withstand several trips through the glassmaking process. Once the defective cullet was quarantined and the process switched over to another cullet pile the stones slowly reduced to a more acceptable level.

The root cause, degraded refractory, continued to produce stones but they were separated and discarded rather than being added back into the cullet supply.

Fig. 1A contains an image of one of the black chromite stones in the ware.

Fig. 1b is an SEM micrograph of a

polished cross-section of another one of the stones and Fig. 1C contains an EDX spectrograph showing the ‘fingerprint’ composition of the original chromite composition in the interior of the defect.

The exterior of the stone was composed of secondary chromic oxide (Cr2O3) crystals which formed after the aluminium, magnesium and iron components of the mineral had diffused into the surrounding glass phase.

Clay-ceramic particles in soda lime container glass A bottle manufacturer experienced a stone upset that caused the bottles to break shortly after forming.

The upset arrived suddenly during a night shift and persisted for five days with no improvement after several furnace moves made during that time.

The customer assumed the stones were un-melted silica batch material and the furnace moves were aimed at improving that condition.

Petrographic analysis quickly disproved the silica batch stone theory and identified that the stones were actually a low grade alumino-silicate clay-ceramic product such as that found in coffee mugs and pottery.

The highly-stressed stones were 8 millimetres in diameter and had large solution sacs with numerous out-gassing bubbles and large Nepheline borders that surrounded an amorphous clay-like core material. There was also a fair amount of tiny quartz grain additive present in the clay-like body.

A manual sorting of the cullet resulted in the isolation of numerous chunks of opaque white and tan coloured material that should not have been there.

Petrographic analysis confirmed these were clay-ceramic material as had been identified at the interiors of the stones.

The root cause of the contamination were coffee mug fragments that had been Continued>>

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Cullet

Corundum alumina in soda lime container glass Two soda lime container manufacturers, one located in New Jersey and the other in Pennsylvania, USA experienced stone upsets at nearly the same time and samples were delivered from each company on the same delivery truck.

The problem at both factories was Corundum alumina stones that consisted of coarse single grains of Corundum with a blue-brown colouration when viewed in plane polarised light.

All indications were that the original substance that comprised the stones was an alumina abrasive grain or refractory grade alumina product.

Each case was handled discretely but both companies came to the same conclusion that their new cullet supplier was the source of the problem.

The cullet supplier subsequently hired an independent consultant who collected samples of the cullet pile at the loading dock and submitted those for analysis. Samples had been taken from several discrete locations in and around the mountain of cullet.

Knowing that we were looking for some form of alumina, with much higher density than glass, the first step of the investigation involved a separation of the alumina grains from the cullet by the water-assisted ‘panning for gold’ technique.

Fused brown alumina was found to be fairly evenly distributed around the surface of the cullet pile.

Unfortunately, the shipyard personnel had placed the glass cullet on a holding pad that was adjacent to and downwind from a similarly large pile of fused brown alumina.

The ensuing lawsuit was settled out of court shortly after expert witness depositions. Fig. 3A contains a PLM photomicrograph of one of the Corundum alumina stones in a soda lime container product while Fig. 3B is a photomicrograph of some of the smaller fused brown alumina

grains that were isolated from the cullet samples.

Conclusion Whether the source of cullet contamination is in-house or external, the results can be devastating to a glass manufacturer. Uninformed personnel in the factory may discard foreign substances such as soda cans or alumina abrasive discs into a cullet bin.

Shipping companies may inadvertently cause problems when they fail to properly clean shipping containers when they should be using wholly dedicated containers. The public does not have any idea what havoc they can inflict upon glass manufacturers when coffee mugs, flower pots, glass-ceramic ovenware, nonsoda lime glass products and metallic bits are discarded into ‘glass’ recycling bins.

Persons involved in the glassmaking operation must first be able to recognise when there is a glass defect upset taking place. Process control charts and baseline analyses of normal production defects should be available for review and consulted during an upset.

Samples from the upset should be collected and sent to a laboratory for analysis.

Those results should be compared to normal baseline conditions so that the variety(s), frequency and size range of defect(s) responsible for the quality upset can be sorted out and efforts focused on the elimination of the problem(s). Any recent changes made in operational set-ups and/or materials use should be considered.

With luck, the laboratory analyses, production status reviews and timeline of raw materials and cullet shipments may point to one or more of the high probability sources that merit further investigation. The list of suspected sources can then be explored by inquiry with suppliers while additional analysis is being completed on any and all materials available.

Regardless of the outcome, the results should be thoroughly documented to provide a historical database in the event of a recurrence of the problem as well as to provide a basis of understanding when negotiations are being made with suppliers. r

*Owner/President, JTF Microscopy Services, Hammondsport, NY, USA. www.jtfmicroscopy.com

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crushed along with the host glass in a post-consumer recycled glass.

PLM photomicrographs of one thinsectioned clay-ceramic stone with large Nepheline alteration fringe are in Fig. 2.

Out-gas bubbles can be seen at the inner portion of the Nepheline fringe of the stone. A photomicrograph of one of the thin-sectioned clay-ceramic chunks is also included for comparison.

39 Glass International October 2015

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Batch plant

Unexplored heat recovery in the container glass industry

Z

ippe has been active in the glass industry since 1920 and has focused on batch plants and cullet systems from the beginning. With more than 600 batch plant projects realised it has plenty of experience, which led to the development of its batch preheating technology in the 1980s. The first batch preheaters were installed in 1984 and since then Zippe, as a supplier to the glass industry, has gained huge experience with the systems.

The efficiency of batch preheaters has been proven, with energy savings amounting to 15% in some cases.

Today, preheating technology is safe in terms of operational stability. Problems of the past, such as clogging and bridging inside the preheater, are not present in modern preheaters. The latest preheaters have virtually no moving parts inside, and so have a constant and smooth operation with hardly any abrasion.

Energy use Due to the necessarily high melting temperatures, energy is an important cost in the glass industry regardless of what type of glass is produced. Engineers always look to reduce the energy consumption of glass melting furnaces.

An important step was the invention of the regenerative air preheating process in the 19th century, which is still the basic concept of most glass melting furnaces today. An overview of the development of regenerative glass melting furnaces was given by M. Cable(1).

Like other proven technical systems, the concept is continuously analysed to find the optimum layout for the respective application. An overview of the development of energy consumption during the glass melting process was given

by R. Conradt(2), starting with a specific energy consumption of about 5600kWh/t in the late 1920s, decreasing to a figure of about 1000kWh/t in 2003.

This figure is less than 10% above the physical limit of 920kWh/t for batch material composition with 70% cullet.

The reduction of specific energy consumption in the glass melting process is based on many parameters. Some of these parameters are: increased use of recycling cullet; minimised leakage of the furnace (less sting out, less cold air sucked in); improved thermal insulation of the furnace; and economy of scale, e.g. reduced share of wall losses in larger furnaces.

During the last 10-15 years there has only been minimal further reductions at some furnaces. There has been a stagnation in the further reduction of specific energy consumption of the glass melting process.

This is not surprising, considering the physical limits and improvements in previous years. Nevertheless, the figures given above describe the optimum that can be achieved with a modern glass melting furnace, not the actual industry standard, which is probably higher.

The introduction of the latest furnace technologies must be accelerated and supported.

A restricting factor for a roll-out of improved technology is the trend to prolong furnace lifetime, which is reasonable when considering simple economic considerations.

Each glass producer has to look for the best economic balance between a long furnace lifetime of its existing installations, and possible technical improvements introduced by furnace replacements or new installations.

Due to a typical energy balance of a container glass furnace shown by Beerkens(3), more than 50% of the used energy can be summarised as losses. The energy consumption of this furnace (1000kWh/t) is close to the thermodynamic limit of 920kWh/t mentioned by Conradt. The flue gas losses of about 30% are typical for most of the standard soda lime glass furnaces and at first appear high.

The thermal efficiency of any air preheater is limited to about 75 to 80% by the ratio of the heat capacity flow (product of the specific heat capacity and volume flow rate) of air and flue gas (4).

The heat capacity flow of air is at least 10% smaller than the heat capacity flow of the flue gas, resulting in an evidently higher temperature difference on the air side of more than 1250°C up to 1350°C for actual regenerators compared to about 1000-1100°C on the flue gas side.

The consequence is a flue gas temperature of 400-550°C at the regenerator exit – finally resulting in about 30% heat losses in the flue gas.

Many attempts have been made to use this energy in external systems, generally boilers for the production of heat for buildings or to generate electric energy.

The disadvantage of this approach is an overcapacity of heat combined with a bad annual utilisation in the case of heating applications, or the high investment for power generators combined with the need for extraordinary maintenance in the case of electric power generation. The best approach would be an application that allows the heat losses in the furnace to be brought back to the melting process, similar to the air preheating process.

Continued>>

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The industry has dramatically reduced the amount of energy consumed in the glassmaking process in the past 15 years. Hansjürgen Barklage-Hilgefort*, Philipp Zippe and Hubert Odenwald explain that further reductions are possible, but each glass producer has to juggle an economic balance between prolonging a furnace lifetime and possible further technical improvements.

41 Glass International October 2015

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Batch plant

Concept of batch preheating

Melting rate: 300t/d

Spec. energy consumption: 1000kWh/t

Equivalent gas consumption: 1250m³/h (Natural gas, 10kWh/m³)

Flue gas volume flow: 14600m³/h (λ = 1,1)

Batch humidity: 2%

Water consumption: 6t/d ( or 250kg/h)

Generated water vapour: 311m³/h (normal conditions, in reality at 100°C 425,3 m³/h)

Evaporation 156,7kW (250kg/h, 2257kJ/kg)

zTable 1: Relation of the volume flows of flue gas and water vapour arising from drying the batch. at temperatures up to 32.5°C as sodium deka hydrate, from 32.5 to 35.4°C as sodium hepta hydrate and from 35.4 to 107°C as sodium mono hydrate.

The result is a changed amount of free humidity in the respective temperature ranges and a plateau in the heat up curve of a glass batch at 107°C for the final release and evaporation of water (Fig. 1).

A frequent question is the behaviour of the dry batch in the furnace as an origin for the increased creation of dust.

Generally, the behaviour of a furnace without batch preheating is similar because the first reaction that takes place during the heating of the batch is to dry it. After heating the batch to 107°C and drying the mixture the situation is exactly the same in furnaces with and without batch preheating, regarding the surface of the dusty dry material.

Fig. 2 shows the expected energy savings, the exit temperatures of preheated materials and flue gas as a function of the flue gas inlet temperature.

Under practical conditions energy savings between 10 and 15% can be expected, depending on the specific situation of a mix of fossil and electric melting energy.

Fig. 3 shows a schematic layout of an actual batch preheater installed by Zippe with a mixture of open and closed channels, including batch hopper,

350

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www.glass-international.com

Starting from the conditions described above it is only a short step to the batch preheating process. The flue gas temperature in the range of 400-550°C has the potential to preheat the raw materials that are supplied to the furnace to a temperature of 200-300°C. The heat capacity flow of the raw materials is, similar to the conditions in the air preheater, smaller than that of flue gases.

In this way, it is possible to bring a part of the flue gas enthalpy back into the melting process.

The energy saving is proportional to the batch preheating temperature.

Besides heating up the raw materials to the above-mentioned temperatures, it has to be considered that the endothermic reactions in the batch material will start at temperatures considerably above 400°C and will not take place in the batch preheater, but only in the furnace.

The batch humidity, which is added to the mixture in the batch plant to avoid the generation of dust, will be taken out of the mixture in an early phase of the batch preheating. This must be taken into account in the layout of the batch preheater and in the calculation of potential energy savings. To avoid any condensation of the water vapour and reactions with the raw materials, the best option is a system where the batch humidity becomes a part of the flue gas flow as soon as possible after the evaporation. Table 1 shows the relation of the volume flows of flue gas and water vapour arising from drying the batch.

Another condition that has to be taken into account is the reaction between water and the batch ingredients, particularly soda, which can bind water

bucket elevators, vibrating chutes and a screw conveyor takeout system. The batch preheater is arranged and operated similarly to a standard batch hopper in front of the furnace. After preheating, the batch is supplied directly to the furnace using a standard batch charger, which is sealed to limit the creation of dust in the furnace area. Generally, systems exist that have direct contact between flue gas and raw materials (open channels) and systems with a separation of flue gas and batch materials. The flue gas is supplied to the batch preheater at the lower end and passes the preheater in a cross counter flow relative to the batch materials. The water vapour is taken up by the flue gas flow in the upper third of the heat exchanger immediately after evaporating from the batch humidity.

Because a part of the gas channels is open at the bottom side, acid components in the flue gases HCI, HF, SOx and other reactive components are partly absorbed by the earth-alkali compounds in the batch (soda, limestone and dolomite).

Thus, the preheater also partly works as a scrubber. Due to the partial direct contact of batch and flue gases, dust emissions into the flue gas stream are increased so the technology requires Continued>>

waste gas material

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Fig 1. Temperature curve obtained during the heating of a standard glass batch

Fig 2. Energy savings, exit temperature of preheated materials and flue gas as a

mixture.

function of the flue gas inlet temperature.

42 Glass International October 2015

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Batch plant

Typical layout

- well insulated - dust-free - high safety (bypass)

The latest preheater (Fig. 4) has been installed at Nampak Glass, South Africa and is also the first preheater on the African continent. The project, realised in 2014/2015, comprised a new batch house for 480t/d together with a 400t/d batch preheater for container glass, all implemented by Zippe and embedded in a PCS-7 software surrounding. It meant the whole batch flow could be optimally designed, from the raw material unloading, storing, weighing, mixing and preheating, down to the batch charger. The whole capacity is fed into the furnace via one doghouse.

The furnace is end-fired with regenerative air preheating and a melting area of 133m². The furnace is operated for the production of emerald green glass and UV green at different cullet proportions.

The preheater is based on a system with a mix of open and closed flue gas channels. Particularly in the upper part there are open channels to take out any water vapour immediately as part of the flue gas.

The preheater started smoothly in March 2015 with a new electrostatic precipitator system. Results of the energy saved with the batch preheater are shown for a pull of 308t/d (Fig. 5).

After starting up the batch preheater the specific energy consumption decreased immediately from about 3400 to around 2950-3080kJ/kg (that means from 944 to about 820-850kWh/t, even below the limit given by Conradt(2)).

The batch composition had to be adjusted due to the use of filter dust and

Fig 5. Specific energy consumption, cullet and boost proportion before and after starting the batch preheater.

heat recovery technologies in order to save energy and therefore production costs. The concept with a mix of open and closed channels gives the optimum effect regarding the creation of dust and the reliable removal of water vapour arising from the batch humidity. r

Bibliography 1. Michal Cable: ‘The Glass Industry’s Greatest Invention: The Siemens Regenerative Furnace’. Presented at the Annual DGG meeting, 2006 June 13th.

2. R. Conradt: HVG-Mitteilung 2037, 2003.

3. R. Beerkens: ‘Best Practice Study 2008, Container Glass Furnace, 84% cullet, 3.62 GJ/ton’; October 1, 2008, NCNG Senter Novem TNO workshop.

4. H. Barklage: ‘Batch preheating on container glass furnaces’ (presented at the 69th conference on Glass Problems, November 4-5, 2008, Ohio).

*Consultant, Glass Technology, Nienburg, Germany. *Zippe, Wertheim, Germanywww.zippe. de

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www.glass-international.com

Nampak Glass

the redox impact of the batch preheater.

Due to the direct contact between flue gas and raw materials, the sulphur that is emitted as SO2 and SO3 is partially captured resulting in a reduced salt cake consumption. A few days after starting up the batch preheater, and after stabilising the filter dust balance, the sodium sulphate consumption was reduced to 33% of the old figure. To retain the redox conditions the amount of carbon was increased. A more stable redox behaviour was observed with the batch preheater due to the reaction of organic materials in the preheater.

The colour of the furnace was switched from emerald green to UV green two weeks after the batch preheater start-up.

During the production of UV green the cullet content was reduced to 56%. Also, with the lower cullet content, the furnace was continuously operated with the batch preheater inline, even during the recolouring back to emerald green.

Since 2010, several new batch preheater installations have been carried out in the industry. There is still potential to apply

Spec, energy (kl/kg)

appropriate filter systems, such as large electrostatic precipitators or bag house filters. These are generally in use in most European glass factories.

Fig 4. Batch preheater at Furnace 3, Nampak, Johannesburg.

Cullet/boost proportion (%)

Fig 3. Schematic layout of a batch preheater.

43 Glass International October 2015

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Events world

Gulf Glass highlights growing Middle East region This year’s Gulf Glass show returned to Dubai for the sixth time and hosted over 150 exhibitors across the three day event, which was held alongside Gulf Sol. The exhibition highlighted the growing business opportunities and interest in the MENA region for the glass industry.

Glass show, and right, Simone Amicosante of Messersi spoke with

G

ulf Glass aims to showcase the latest technology, materials and products available across the entire glass manufacturing industry, with a focus on the flat glass and solar glass industries.

Held in the World Trade Centre, Dubai, this year the event had more than 150 exhibitors from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as well as Europe, China, the USA and Asia across its two halls.

It also hosted the first Global Solar Leaders Summit, which was well attended by government ministers and dignitaries from across the region.

www.glass-international.com

z Main picture: The entrance to the Gulf

Used ACL Printing Machines & Used Decorating Lehrs available for sale Interested parties, please contact: Malaya Glass Products Sdn Bhd, 72A, Jalan Tampoi, 81200 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.

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Glass International’s Sally Love at the event.

Many of the exhibitors commented on the quality of the visitors and the potential in the region. John Ruckle, Vice President Building Sciences at Intertek, noted: “This is our first time presenting at the show and we enjoyed the strong attendance and the positive feedback. The audience was engaged and knowledgeable and it generated a lot of technical dialogue.”

Prof. He Wen, of China Triumph International Engineering Co agreed that the Middle East is a significant market, noting that despite the unstable reputation of surrounding countries such as Syria, the UAE remains a popular and successful place to do business.

“This was reflected in the different pavilions at the show, with Germany, Italy, and China all represented in their own areas.”

The MENA region Many exhibitors commented on how the MENA area is a growing region for the glass manufacturing industry, and seemed optimistic about the potential

business that they can secure from customers from the UAE and the nearby Middle East, as well as Africa and India: “It’s an important, growing region”, said Giorgio Zanforlin of Italy’s Stara Glass. “We have to be here”.

The UAE itself is home to float manufacturers such as Kaveh Glass and Middle East Glass, as well as container manufacturers such as Saverglass and Frigoglass. All market signs point to an upturn in business in the coming years, Continued>>

44 Glass International October 2015 oi.indd 1

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Events world

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business in Africa and India, so we had to be here. Iran is very dynamic now… [The Middle East] is a growing region for us”.

Bob Hughes, of Ramsey Products, underlined the sentiments of many of the exhibitors when he said: “The show has been positive. We’re meeting familiar customers and new contacts, and we’ve seen a lot of interest in our new products.

It’s a region we are looking to develop.

This show is a good base to work from, as a lot of visitors come from India and the surrounding Gulf countries”.

Gulf Sol The solar glass side of the exhibition was supported by the Global Solar Leaders Summit, the first solar energy summit hosted by the show, which focused on the region’s drive towards using renewable energy. The summit was attended by government figures from the UAE, Jordan, Pakistan, and Kenya who all took part in giving presentations on a range of topics relating to the energy sectors in their countries.

Estimates state that the MENA region is expected to attract more than US$50 billion in investments into solar power over the next five years alone, and it is something leaders of the UAE region are interested in harnessing. It is obvious why, with temperatures during the show reaching in excess of 40ºC with constant sunshine throughout.

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Going forward The next Gulf Glass show will be held in Dubai in 2017, and will welcome suppliers and manufacturers of the flat and solar glass industries to the event.

In the meantime, Glassman Middle East will be held in 2016 in Abu Dhabi, focusing specifically on the hollow and container glass markets. 

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with both the construction and food and beverage industries expecting to benefit from an increased demand for glass.

The flat glass industry in particular is expected to boom, with construction across the region still growing massively and the use of futuristic skyscrapers in cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi leading the way in the increased demand for architectural glass.

The Gulf Glass show took advantage of this, bringing together suppliers and manufacturers from across the industry.

The organiser highlighted how a recent study by Deloitte Middle East entitled ‘GCC Powers of Construction 2015: Construction – the Economic Barometer for the Region’, reported that the total value of infrastructure and capital projects planned and underway in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in 2015 is valued at US$172 billion – the highest amount on record to date.

Exhibitors also showed an interest in doing business with countries such as nearby Iran, which in particular is a country of interest right now with its young population, natural reserves of silica and natural gas, a cheap labour force, and a new nuclear deal that aims to remove its trade sanctions with the west.

Francesco Cavaioni of BDF noted: “The show is going well. We are well placed for

45 Glass International October 2015

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The glassmaker’s diary

Events world

Luxe Pack Monaco Packaging exhibition for specialist luxury products.

October 21st-23rd 2015 Grimaldi Forum, Monaco. www.luxepack.com/accueil.php Glass Problems 2015 A conference of technical education through lectures, panel discussions and focused courses.

Nov 2nd - 5th 2015 Columbus Convention Center, Ohio, USA. CONTACT: mthiel@ceramics.org www. glassproblemsconference.org Glasstech Asia 2015 A platform for industry players to tap into the growing South-East Asian market.

November 19th-21st 2015 Jakarta, Indonesia www.glasstechasia.com.sg International Congress on Glass 2016 A platform for the dissemination of glass science and technology information.

April 7th - 11th 2016 Shanghai International Convention Center (SHICC), Shanghai, China.

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China Glass 2016 Annual Chinese exhibition returns to Shanghai.

April 11th-14th 2016 Shanghai New International Exhibition Centre, Shanghai, China.

CONTACT: ceramsoc@163.com www.chinaglass-expo.com Glassman Middle East 2016 The Glassman exhibition and conference returns to the Middle East for the first time since 2009.

May 10th - 11th 2016 Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, UAE. CONTACT: jeremyfordrey@quartzltd.com kenclark@quartzltd.com www.glassmanevents.com Mir Stekla 2016 Annual Russian exhibition.

June 6th-9th 2016 Moscow Expo Centre, Pavilion Number 2,Russia, .

CONTACT:re@expocentr.ru www.mirstekla-expo.ru/ ESG 2016/SGT 100 conference 2016 marks the Society’s centenary year and it will celebrate with events including a return to the University for its Annual Conference.

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