State-of-the-art of waste glass melters

The volumes of hazardous, nonhazardous, radioactive, and mixed wastes produced each year are large. Waste vitrification or transformation of waste into a nonleaching and useful secondary glass material is an environmentally attractive process. However, the environmental benefits will not be realized until treatment costs are reduced. The key to reducing costs is improving the melting technology. Several different melter concepts have been briefly described that may achieve cost-effective vitrification of many of these wastes. The different concepts considered are long-residence-time melters, high-level radioactive waste melters, commercial glass melters, electric arc furnaces, co-current fossil fuel firing and waste melting, and mechanical stirring