20 Jul LIFE SUGAR comes to life: testing begins at Vetrerie Meridionali
Following the completion of installation and cold commissioning, the LIFE SUGAR pilot has entered its experimental testing phase at the Vetrerie Meridionali glass plant in Castellana Grotte, Italy.
The start of the test campaign represents a key milestone for the project: for the first time, the complete pilot system is being progressively brought into operation and evaluated under real industrial conditions.
From commissioning to operation
The first testing activities focused on the controlled start-up of the pilot and on verifying the behaviour of the complete system beyond the individual equipment checks performed during cold commissioning.
The start-up procedure is carried out progressively, beginning with nitrogen flushing and system inertisation, followed by preheating and the gradual introduction of steam.
Once the required operating conditions are reached, natural gas can be introduced into the reforming unit, allowing the Steam Methane Reforming process to begin.
Throughout the different stages, temperatures, pressures, flow rates and process conditions are continuously monitored to verify the stability and safety of the system.
Producing hydrogen-rich syngas
The central objective of the campaign is to demonstrate the production of a hydrogen-rich syngas using thermal energy recovered from the glassmaking process.
Inside the reformer, natural gas reacts with steam to produce the syngas, which can subsequently be used as a fuel for the glass furnace.
This is the core principle behind LIFE SUGAR: instead of considering furnace waste heat only as an energy loss, the project aims to recover and reuse part of that energy within the fuel production process itself.
The testing phase allows the consortium to evaluate how the different process sections interact and to progressively optimise the operating parameters of the complete system.
Testing in a real glass plant
One of the defining features of LIFE SUGAR is that the demonstrator is not being operated in a laboratory environment.
The pilot is directly integrated into the Vetrerie Meridionali production site, alongside an operating glass furnace.
This provides the project partners with the opportunity to evaluate the technology under realistic industrial conditions and to collect valuable information on process stability, control strategies, thermal behaviour and system integration.
The results of the campaign will support the optimisation of the pilot and provide essential data for assessing the future scale-up of the SUGAR concept.
A decisive step for LIFE SUGAR
After the engineering, manufacturing, installation and commissioning phases, the beginning of testing marks the moment when the LIFE SUGAR concept becomes an operating system.
The coming test campaigns will be crucial for validating the technology and understanding its potential contribution to the decarbonisation and energy efficiency of glass production.
For Stara Glass and the LIFE SUGAR partners, this is where years of development begin to turn into real industrial experience.
