• SORG supplies
• Glass melting
• The melting technology
• The furnaces
• Systems and equipment
• Glas conditioning
• The conditioning technologies
• The forehearth systems
• Systems and equipment for distributors and forehearths
• Emhart Glass forehearths
• Systems for special applications
• SORG installations - some of the best

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The SORG furnaces

We have the experience and knowledge to offer a furnace design to suit each individual application and we will willingly advise you on the best type of furnace for your application. We can offer conventional, all-electric or oxy-fuel designs, and each can be enhanced with a range of additional systems such as bubblers, booster. etc.

Regenerative furnaces

Most glass furnaces use conventional oil or gas heating with the regenerative system to recover residual heat from the waste gases. Such furnaces can either be end-fired or cross-fired.

Today most SORG furnaces of this type are end-fired. The basic design is very flexible and we have built small furnaces with melting areas less than
15 m², whilst the largest SORG furnaces of this type built to date have melting areas greater than 150 m² and produce up to 450 tons per day.

Cross-fired furnaces are generally used for higher tonnages that are not yet possible with end-fired designs. A typical application is for float glass furnaces, but the largest container tanks also utilise this design.

Recuperative furnaces

We use recuperative waste heat recovery on three different types of furnace.

The smallest furnaces (< 35t/24h) are often built to an end-fired design using a double shell recuperator. Such furnaces are used, for example, for the small scale production of tableware or fibre for insulating wool (C glass).

Larger furnaces are sometimes built with recuperative waste heat recovery, and with the burners located along the furnace sidewalls. Tube cage recuperators are normally used, that offer a higher air preheat than dounble shell recuperators. These furnaces are almost always used to melt container glass, although we have recently built two to melt basalt for the production of stonewool insulation.

The third type of furnace for which we use recuperative waste heat recovery are some special furnace concepts that we have developed for specific applications (see Special furnaces, below).

Oxy-fuel melters

We have extensive experience of oxy-fuel furnaces. The first SORG installation was made in 1996 and we have used this technology for a wide range of applications, from a small 12 ton per day furnace melting ceramic frit to a 400 ton per day container furnace.

Other glasses currently being melted in SORG oxy-fuel furnaces include Pyrex(R) type hard borosilcate glass, E glass for textile fibres and C glass for insulating wool.

 

All-electric furnaces

Low emission levels and the relatively easy treatment of the low quantities
of waste gases make all-electric melting an attractive proposition for a range of special glasses. However, the normally high cost of electricity as a primary melting energy source tends to make its use for containers uneconomic.

The SORG VSM® all-electric furnace design features the patented Top Electrodes and revolving crown batch charging system.

We have built more than 85 all-electric furnaces ranging in size from 2,5 to 200 tons per day.

Special furnaces

One of the most notable aspects of our work for the past 30 years has been the development of radically new furnace concepts for specific applications.

The LoNOx® Melter

This is a container glass furnace designed to produce NOx emissions of less than 500 mg/Nm³ waste gas. The initial installation was made in 1987 and the design is now in the third generation. The largest unit produces 380t/24h green glass for containers.

 

The FlexMelter®

The FlexMelter® concept was originally developed for discontinuous operation without a lowering of the glass quality following the restart of the production. One of the main features of the FlexMelter® is the refining bank, where the glass passes through an area of reduced glass bath depth to aid the refining process.

Radioactive waste melter

SORG has developed a melting system for medium level radioactive waste together with the leading German research institute in Karlsruhe. A “hot” (i.e. radioactive) unit has been used in Belgium to treat European waste and the next installation will be in China.