HiQ Specialty Gas Mixtures are crucial in the glass industry for environmental compliance worldwide. Float glass production facilities are becoming increasingly required to monitor and control emissions in order to reduce environmental pollutants such as carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and SO2. Within the EU, the BREF (Best Available Technology Reference) document for Glass Manufacture under IED (Industrial Emissions Directive) framework brings tighter emission limit values. Similar legislation often applies in other regions worldwide. Essential to emissions monitoring and detection are precise specialty gas mixtures. These mixtures calibrate the instrumentation in the process train, measuring the flue gas through each process step, eventually being vented into the atmosphere through the smoke stack.
In general, non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) instruments or Fourier transform infrared gas analysers (FTIR) are used for emissions monitoring measurements. Both instruments require a broad range of HiQ calibration gas mixtures, typically mixtures of NO, CO or SO2 in N2, at relatively low concentrations, sometimes in parts per million, and HiQ Zero Gases.
Apart from emission monitoring, emission reduction is also a big challange for the industry with increasingly strict environmental legislation. Industrial gases and gas applications can play an important role to overcome these challenges. Special gas application technologies seek to generate those conditions least favourable for emission formation. An interesting example in that case is Linde’s COROX® LowNOx with its staged combustion and flue gas recirculation for NOx reduction.
The role of industrial gases continues to the final stages of float glass manufacture. The rare gas krypton can be used in a technology known as “sputtering deposition” to coat the surface of the glass with a thin film of metal, maximising its energy efficiency and reducing the requirement for electrical heating in a building and in another application as an alternative to argon, krypton is injected between sheets of float glass when double or triple glazing is produced, to achieve superior sound and heat insulation properties that deliver significant energy efficiency benefits, while reducing condensation, dampness and noise levels inside the building. Linde can deliver the full range of specialty and rare gases and mixtures, including silane, argon, helium and krypton, in the precise volumes and purities required for a variety of coating operations.
The Linde Group also supplies bulk quantities of O2 for succesfull improvement of furnace operations, SO2 as a dry lubricant to protect the tin bath rollers, acetylene for the CARBOFLAM® for mould coating in press and blow forming processes, HYDROPOX® flame treatment for the perfect glass surface finish and welding gases for speedy and cost effective maintenance applications.