ACACIA-2

In the current context of greenhouse gas reduction, improving energy efficiency in industries using high-temperature processes requires the development of high-temperature heat recovery solutions. To decarbonize the glass industry, the use of hydrogen as an alternative energy carrier for combustion is a promising option but further research and process improvements are necessary to support this change. Indeed, the replacement of fossil fuels with hydrogen results in completely new combustion conditions as higher flame temperature which can induce higher NOx emissions and water content in the exhaust fumes. The modifications of these key parameters might have a detrimental effect on the materials used for capture of the waste heat. We propose to evaluate this impact on durability and heat transfer properties on selected materials to be used in the glass industry as regenerator or heat exchangers. A new concept of heat exchanger is introduced in this study to enhance waste heat recovery by using random or structured porous ceramic foams. The ageing of materials used in these exchangers is being studied in the case of furnaces with O2/H2 powered combustion. A multi-physical model with coupled heat transfers at different scales will be also proposed. This project falls within the framework of the recovery of so-called "fatal" heat from industrial sources at High Temperature - HT (>600°C), or even Ultra High Temperature - UHT (>1000°C). The aim is to look at the aspects linked to heat capture via hot gases from industrial sources (furnaces) with combustion doped in O2 and/or H2 by porous volume exchangers. Faced with the need to reduce CO2 and NOx emissions in all industrial activities, solutions using powered combustions with O2 (oxy-combustion) and hydrogen (H2) are proposed by SAINT-GOBAIN. It is therefore important to see how ceramic materials react in the presence of H2O and how these changes modify the performance of our foams and exchangers.