Ink Firing and Rolling Hearth Furnaces

Ink Firing Furnace with Annealing and Cooling

Casso-Solar Technologies can provide full service end-to-end firing systems including dryers, firing furnaces, annealing and cooling stations. Dryers combined with rolling hearth furnaces can fire decorative or conductive ceramic ink coatings into the glass. The glass is then annealed or partially heat strengthened, for further processing.

Furnace conveyors are comprised of high-tolerance fused silica rolls with a lift-out edge drive design to maximize uniformity. Cooling is accomplished both radiantly, and with forced air to properly control the rate of cooling. Systems can be designed for continuous or batch operation depending on the production volume requested.

The glass furnaces are provided with recipe-driven PLC control systems with touchscreen HMI units for operator interfacing. Our programming team will also work with the customer’s team to interface with any upstream and downstream equipment as required to provide a fully automated solution.

Rolling Hearth Furnace for Electrochromic Glass Production

There are a number of companies developing new techniques and processes for producing electrochromic glass (glass that tints when an electric current is applied) and in many cases those processes require the glass to be raised to an elevated temperature (500°C+) for a set period of time, then annealed and cooled. Other steps may also be required, and these furnaces are modular to allow sections to be added as needed for each customer.

These furnaces typically are designed to run batch production, which is ideal for the long dwell times required in many electrochromic glass applications. By running batches rather than continuous production, the floor space utilized by the furnace is minimized.