Method of melting flat glass using nitrates to suppress sulfurous emissions

Claim 1

In the method of melting soda-lime-silica glass wherein a pool of molten glass is maintained within an elongated furnace, and glass batch materials and cullet are fed into the furnace at one end and melted glass is withdrawn at the opposite end and formed into a flat glass ribbon, wherein sources of Si, Na, Ca, Mg, Al, and Fe in the batch and cullet are proportioned to yield a glass composition comprising, by weight: 6- 75percent SiO 2 12-16 percent Na 2 O 0-2 percent K 2 O 8-12 percent CaO 2-5 percent MgO 0-2 percent Al 2 O 3 0-7 percent Fe measured as Fe 2 O 3 as the sole essential colorant; and the interior of the furnace is maintained at sufficient temperatures and conditions to melt and react the batch and cullet to yield said glass composition; wherein the batch and cullet also include sources of sulfur, a portion of which is retained in the glass and additionally comprises 0.10 percent to 0.5 percent by weight of the product glass composition as SO 3 and the remainder of which is volatilized and escapes from the pool of molten glass as gaseous products of reaction, said volatilization and escape of part of the sulfur serving as essentially the sole fining agent to reduce gaseous inclusions in the glass to no more than one seed per square foot of formed glass ribbon, the improvement comprising: determining the sulfur content of the product glass withdrawn from the furnace and accordingly controlling the input rate of sulfur in the batch and cullet being fed into the furnace to no more than 1.4 times the output rate of sulfur being withdrawn in the melted glass product stream; feeding into the furnace at a rate of at least 0.1 percent of the batch on a dry weight basis an oxidizing agent comprising an inorganic nitrate salt; and maintaining the batch and cullet feed stream essentially free from carbon and organic materials; whereby the rate of sulfur-containing emission from the furnace is reduced while maintaining the requisite fining of the glass.