Process Premier Award 2011
Sponsored by BP plc
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 15 June 2011 by Sir Stuart Rose.
Pilkington UK Ltd
UK5 Pollution Control Plant, Reheat Burners, Furnace Upgrade and On-Line Glass Coating System
Sir Stuart Rose (right) presenting the award to Gary Charlton, MD Building Products UK Upstream.
Founded in 1918, NSG acquired glass manufacturer Pilkington plc in June 2006. Today, the enlarged company has sales of about JPY*600 billion, manufacturing operations in 29 countries, sales in 130 countries and employs 28,500 people worldwide. The Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of glass and glazing systems for building products, solar energy generation, automotive and speciality glass.
The Pilkington UK5 float glass line is the largest glass furnace in the UK. The line had melted close to 700 tonnes of glass every day since it started up in June 1993 and until it closed down for a £30 million refurbishment in 2008. As part of the refurbishment, the opportunity was taken to install a pollution control plant (PCP) on the furnace exhaust, this uses selective catalytic reduction of NOx, a first for the UK float industry. The pollution equipment includes an electrostatic precipitator and acid gas scrubber.
The line produces electricity from an existing waste heat boiler and to optimise this, a 6 MW reheat burner system was installed in the flue to smooth out variations in temperature caused by the furnace. The burners also overcome the thermal losses caused by the PCP.
The furnace was rebuilt with a new insulation package and improved combustion system. The project also involved the installation of an on-line glass coater inside the float bath to produce coatings that can improve the performance of solar cells or produce a low-heat-transfer coating for high-performance double glazing.
The furnace restarted in January 2011, the coater in February and the PCP system will be commissioned by June 2011. The project ensures that glass with the lowest overall carbon footprint is available on the European market.
*Where JPY is the Japanese Yen.
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To see the Pilkington UK Ltd video click here.