L'air Liquide, Soci&#xe9;t&#xe9; Anonyme Pour L'etude Et L'exploitation Des Proc&#xe9;d&#xe9;s Georges Claude

Wei Huang

Bhadra S Grover

Remi Pierre Tsiava

Youssef Joumani

Kenneth Kaiser

Michael Garry Keith Grant

An ion transport membrane, a heat exchanger, and a recuperator are integrated with a float glass manufacturing process. Only feeds of fuel and air are necessary for producing hot oxygen for a melting furnace and a nitrogen-enriched stream to a float bath. The oxygen and nitrogen are produced on-site without requiring cryogenic distillation.

Ion transport membranes in float glass manufacturing

The present invention is a method of integrating oxygen production with blast furnace operation. A heated air stream is introduced to an ion transfer membrane separator, producing a permeate and a retentate. The permeate and the motive stream are introduced into an ejector jet pump producing an oxygen enriched stream. The oxygen enriched stream is introduced into blast furnace. In another embodiment of the present invention, the permeate and a steam motive stream are introduced into an ejector jet pump. Heated air inlet stream is introduced into a cascading series of ion transfer membrane separators, producing a series of permeate streams and a series of retentate streams wherein each retentate stream acts as the input stream for the subsequent ion transfer membrane separator. Thereby producing a series of oxygen enriched streams which are combined and introduced into blast furnace.

Use of oxygen from ion transport membranes in blast furnace

Ion transport membranes are integrated with a glass melting furnace and a float glass bath. Only feeds of air, steam and hydrocarbon are necessary for producing hot oxygen for the melting furnace and a mixture of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen for the float glass bath.

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Newark, DE, United States of America

Wei Huang