One of the ways to increase glass furnaces energy efficiency is to apply heat exchangers for flue gases thermal potential utilization.
Flue gases losses is up to 25-40 % of the total amount of heat supplied in the furnace. These losses are influences by such factors as fuel type, furnace and burners design and manufactured product type.
Regenerative heat exchangers with various types of heat storage packing is more efficient for high-power furnaces.
Such types of regenerator checkerwork as Cowper checkerwork, two types of Siemens checkerwork, Lichte checkerwork and combined checkerwork have already been sufficiently researched, successfully applied and widely used for glass furnaces of various designs. All of its are made of standard refractory bricks. Basket checkerwork and cruciform checkerwork that are made of fused-cast molded refractory materials have been widely used recently as well.
Further improvement of regenerative heat exchangers thermal efficiency only by replacing the checkerwork does not seem possible unless their size being increased. But this enlarging is not always realizable during the modernization of existing furnaces.
From this point of view heat storage elements with a phase transition, where metal salts and their mixtures are used as a fusible agent look promising for glass furnaces.
These elements can accumulate additional amount of heat due to phase transition, which allows to increase significantly heat exchanger thermal rating without its size and operating conditions changing.
However, it is necessary to carry out additional studies of this type of checkerwork dealing with analysis of complex unsteady heat exchange processes in regenerators and selection of appropriate materials that satisfy the operating conditions of regenerative heat exchangers so that the checkerwork can be widely used for glass furnaces.
