The world faces an existential threat: climate change. Our vast experience gives us the unique advantage of being the world leader in glassmaking technology. But it also gives us the responsibility and the honour of pushing the industry forward. SORG will lead the glass industry in its mission to become sustainable.
Visit Our Sustainable Melting PageThe decarbonisation movement has spread from policy-setting bodies to businesses and it’s now clear we all have a role in preventing extreme climate change. As a company with extensive technical expertise in sustainable glassmaking technology, we work with our customers as well as recognised industry bodies to develop and implement sustainable melting and conditioning technologies worldwide.
Over the last ten years, our research and development efforts have shifted to finding sustainable technologies to melt and condition glass. Never have we felt such a responsibility to arrive at a solution so quickly. We have made significant advances in furnace design, technology and the use of sustainable energy sources. Our industry and planet have SORG’s unwavering commitment to preventing irreversible climate change.
The future of glassmaking requires sustainable melting technology. Legal guidelines like emission trading and increasingly strict limits on air pollutants will force glass producers to change their furnace technology. Classical combustion technology, like the regenerative firing principle used for more than 150 years, will soon be gone. We will see increasing adoption of our all-electric furnaces that over 100 plants have used during the last 50 years. For larger capacities, our state-of-the-art hybrid furnace will deliver instantaneous advantages in carbon reduction as the industry explores large-scale commercialisation of alternative, low carbon fuels to supplement the electric energy contribution.
As a pioneer in electric melting, sustainable melting is not new to SORG. For the last 50 years, SORG has built more than 100 all-electric melters for applications such as standard soda-lime glasses and special glasses with highly volatile components.
Products have ranged from pharmaceuticals and cosmetics to container glass, in furnaces from 5 tpd up to 200 tpd. As a result, we have also successfully installed a container glass all-electric furnace with the highest ever pull. In addition to an all-electric melter, SORG developed the LoNOx® Melter in 1986, changing the face of modern melting technology. It was the first furnace to feature integrated batch pre-heating, combined with an external cullet pre-heater. This achieved unparalleled energy efficiency and the lowest levels of NOx ever achieved in industrial glass melting furnaces.
