Bonded Glass Contact Refractories for the Forehearth & Distributor

David Parkinson, Parkinson-Spencer Refractories Ltd

 

It is now 25 years since the generic zircon-mullite refractory material ‘333’ was introduced by PSR and other Emhart refractory licensees as a glass contact material for the forehearth channel block and during that time it has been adopted by many glass container manufacturers as their forehearth channel block material of choice. The preference by some glassmakers however for non-zirconia containing channel blocks led PSR to enter into the development of a bonded alumina refractory composition with equivalent glass corrosion properties.
This paper covers the merits of ‘333’ as a channel block material and describes PSR’s development of their new dense bonded alumina material PSR-993. Originally intended to be an alternative for ‘333’ channels, with longer term and more intensive research PSR-993 has far exceeded its original target properties, and with corrosion resistance equivalent to fused-cast α-β material it is currently being used as a refractory material for distributor glass contact blocks.

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