From 2015 to 2019, AGC Glass Asia Pacific conducted and completed a major plant relocation from Jakarta to Cikampek. This new plant was upgraded with many state-of-the-art technologies. As part of these upgrades, special refractories and furnace designs have been applied to the “Regenerator” which have a significant positive impact on the energy efficiency. This enabled enhanced heat retention performance, improved durability and long-term use.
We expect to reduce CO2 emissions by 13,000 tonnes per year with this new technology and equipment.
From 2020 to 2021, the float furnace at AGC Flat Glass Thailand Samut Prakan plant underwent cold repair where glass production and flow of fuel was stopped to cool down the furnace completely. The production line was renovated and upgraded with the most advanced energy and efficient furnace technology from AGC Glass Europe. As a result, there is significant improvement to the furnace’s combustion efficiency and productivity. It was the first plant to do this in the Asia Pacific region.
We expect to reduce CO2 emissions by 10,000 tonnes per year with this new technology and equipment.
Full oxygen combustion technology
This technology realised much higher combustion efficiency than a conventional furnace because they do not heat excess nitrogen. Air contains around 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen. The nitrogen is not only useless in the combustion process but at high temperatures produces nitrogen oxides (NOx) which is a greenhouse gas. Thus, using pure oxygen instead of air helps to reduce the energy needed for the combustion as it is no longer necessary to heat up the nitrogen and prevents the formation of NOx.
AGC is progressively applying oxygen combustion to flat glass production furnaces around the world, starting with the Yokohama Technical Center mould plate line.
In addition to this new oxygen combustion technology, AGC Architectural Glass Asia Pacific is considering introducing hot oxygen combustion, which has already proven effective in AGC Glass Europe. Read more
We are also working on developing the technology for ammonia combustion, allowing us to transition to carbon-free fuels and produce glass with far lower greenhouse gas emissions. Read more