Glass Futures trial successfully demos low-cost bioderived fuels for glass and ceramics

In the UK, a major industrial trial was successfully undertaken this month as part of a Glass Futures project to identify and demonstrate a variety of economically and technically suitable low-cost bioderived fuels for a range of industrial glass and ceramics sites with furnaces of varying designs and scales.

In previous Industrial Fuel Switching (IFS) round 1, phase 3 projects, Glass Futures demonstrated the feasibility of a number of biofuels such as for use in glass furnaces and identified fuels that emit circa 80% less Scope 1 CO2 than traditional natural gas. However, these fuels were found to be typically 2-3 times more expensive than natural gas and therefore, economically unattractive.
The first of five trials kicked off with a successful industrial-scale trial at Pilkington UK Limited’s (part of NSG Group) Greengate site in St Helens as part of a project funded by the UK government under the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s (DESNZ) IFS 2, phase 2 program, funded within its Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.
Not only will the project develop a detailed understanding of these fuels, their availability and potential CO2 savings but will also assess their compatibility with Carbon Capture Utilisation & Storage (CCUS) technologies in a project led by C-Capture, demonstrating the potential to remove CO2 from the flue gas emissions.
Glass furnaces and ceramics kilns are pre-dominantly fired using natural gas due to ease of supply, and while the glass industry is already embarking on a range of new technologies to decarbonize glass melting, it is vital that these essential industries continue to find viable low-carbon alternatives to gas.