| Summary: | Glass manufacturing is an energy-intensive process in which oxy-fuel combustion can offer advantages over the traditional air-blown approach. Examples include the reduction of NO<sub>x</sub> and particulate emissions, improved furnace operations and enhanced heat transfer. This paper presents a one-dimensional mathematical model solving mass, momentum and energy balances for a planar oxygen transport membrane module. The main modelling parameters describing the surface oxygen kinetics and the microstructure morphology of the support are calibrated on experimental data obtained for a 30 μm thick dense La<sub>0.6</sub>Sr<sub>0.4</sub>Co<sub>0.2</sub>Fe<sub>0.8</sub>O<sub>3-δ</sub> (LSCF) membrane layer, supported on a 0.7 mm porous LSCF structure. The model is then used to design and evaluate the performance of an oxygen transport membrane module integrated in a glass melting furnace. Three different oxy-fuel glass furnaces based on oxygen transport membrane and vacuum swing adsorption systems are compared to a reference air-blown unit. The analysis shows that the most efficient membrane-based oxyfuel furnace cuts the energy demand by ~22% as compared to the benchmark air-blown case. A preliminary economic assessment shows that membranes can reduce the overall glass production costs compared to oxyfuel plants based on vacuum swing adsorption technology.
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