Toyo Glass to try oxy-fuel furnace

The bottle maker Toyo Glass will switch one of its furnaces in Chiba, Japan, to oxy-fuel combustion during renovations next year. The firm says the technology will make it easier to capture the CO₂ emissions from the production line, which makes more than 200 metric tons of glass per day. The flue gas from normal combustion is mostly nitrogen, with a CO₂ content of around 10%. Separating the two chemically similar gases is the hardest part of postcombustion carbon capture. Because oxy-fuel furnaces use pure oxygen instead of air, the resulting flue gas is nearly pure CO2 with some water vapor, an easier mix to separate. Toyo says eliminating nitrogen also makes heat transfer more efficient, cutting 20% of the furnace’s CO₂emissions even before capturing the flue gas.