The largest producer of water glass (sodium silicate) in Poland, Zakłady Chemiczne Rudniki has appointed Forglass to design and deliver a new furnace with higher pull and lower energy consumption.
Zakłady Chemiczne Rudniki wanted to increase its competitive advantage and Forglass has the technology that will allow it to produce more volume, effectively lowering the energy cost per unit of glass.
Vitreous sodium silicate is a glass with just about the simplest chemical composition. This simplicity and no need to remove gas bubbles (which later in the process actually help with dissolving the glass in water) may suggest triviality of the melting process and, therefore, simplified furnace design.
But that is an illusion. Reactions of soda with sand have a complex character and the competing issues of efficiency and energy consumption require a highly modified furnace structure.
Due to the fact that one of the applications of water glass is in household chemicals, admixtures in the batch are strictly controlled, which practically eliminates the possibility of using additional ingredients, as chemical boosters.
Bearing these limitations in mind, Forglass has developed a furnace design that provides an advantage in the heating rate of the batch when it is fed into the furnace and provides better technological use of the supplied energy, while guaranteeing the highest quality of the melted vitreous sodium silicate.
All aspects of this important furnace modernisation, including engineering, delivery, installation, automation and servicing are handled entirely by Forglass.
