New glass melter designs, such as segmented melters, furnace with sub-atmospheric fining, centrifugal or cyclone melters have found only limited applications until now. Segmented melters with a separate zone for melting-in & conditioning seem to be superior in providing a high quality glass with the lowest energy consumption levels, compared to conventional melting systems. Such glass melting furnaces already exist, but are subject for further developments such as combining segmented melters with oxygen firing & suppressing return glass melt flows between the different zones. These furnaces need to be economically more attractive in future. Methods to increase the energy flux to the batch blankets without excessive re-circulation flows in the melting tank are also of great importance to reduce the mixing of well-refined glass with a freshly prepared seedy melt.
