Traditionally, in the container glass industry, Hot Spot Boost (HSB) technology using oxygen burners has been used to increase output by as much as 10-15% when demand from an end-fired furnace is operating at its limit. It is a well-established technique of adding between 104MW of oxygen fuel at the hot spot region of the furnace improving fuel gas savings, glass quality and alleviating furnace pressure as an extra benefit. In recent times, it has been used to reduce pressure on aging furnace regenerators, removing as much as 4000 m3/h combustion air from the air fuel burners. The work described here looks at an alternative technique of reversing the HSB burners and firing them with either 100% natural gas, or 100% oxygen, depending on the firing side of the end air fuel burners. Results indicate we still see an improvement in output, quality and the ability to reduce furnace pressure but using 50% less oxygen compared with conventional HSB firing. The paper also goes on to describe the improvement in NOx abatement and control in conjunction with oxygen lances installed near the entry to the regenerators. Work carried out on a 280/tpd end fired container furnace showed significant reduction in NOx levels using relatively small volumes of oxygen as an "on cost" to overall production.
