A furnace, and a method of firing it, wherein part of the fuel supplied to the furnace is produced from waste plastics by a depolymerisation process, waste heat from the furnace being used to promote the depolymerisation process. The furnace is equipped with regenerators for waste heat recovery and is fired alternately in first and second opposed directions, with the direction of firing periodically reversing between the first direction and the second direction. The supply of fuel to the furnace is temporarily interrupted while the direction of firing is reversing, means being provided to accommodate the fuel produced during the temporary interruption. The furnace may be used for producing glass.

A gas phase type heating method includes loading an object into a vapor heating furnace or a heating furnace via a loading/unloading portion, cooling vapor of a heat transfer liquid by a cooler provided above the loading/unloading portion in the vapor heating furnace, and causing a gas to go in and out, making a pressure in a continuous furnace uniform, and heating the loaded object, by a connection portion that is provided above the cooler and has a pressure loss smaller than a pressure loss of the loading/unloading portion.

A gas phase type heating method includes loading an object into a vapor heating furnace or a heating furnace via a loading/unloading portion, cooling vapor of a heat transfer liquid by a cooler provided above the loading/unloading portion in the vapor heating furnace, and causing a gas to go in and out, making a pressure in a continuous furnace uniform, and heating the loaded object, by a connection portion that is provided above the cooler and has a pressure loss smaller than a pressure loss of the loading/unloading portion.

A chlorine bypass device which can cool exhaust gas quickly by mixing extracted exhaust gas with cooling air at high efficiency, to thereby produce fine chloride dust, and increase dust recovery efficiency.

A chlorine bypass device which can cool exhaust gas quickly by mixing extracted exhaust gas with cooling air at high efficiency, to thereby produce fine chloride dust, and increase dust recovery efficiency.

An apparatus includes a thermal chamber, a first reservoir containing a first liquid/vapor two-phase system, a second reservoir containing a second liquid/vapor two-phase system and conduits connecting the first reservoir and second reservoir to the thermal chamber. The first and second liquid/vapor two-phase systems include a liquid phase and a separate vapor phase. The apparatus also includes a conduit connecting the vapor phases of the first and second reservoirs. The apparatus can be used to thermally cycle an object placed in the thermal chamber or the vapor region of the first reservoir. The object can include one or more layers of an electrically or magnetically polarizable material.

Provision of a gas production apparatus that can stably produce a product gas with carbon monoxide as its main component from a separated gas including carbon dioxide as a main component.

The gas production apparatus 1 consists of the following: a separation and capture section 5, which separates and captures separated gas containing mainly of carbon dioxide from the exhaust gas taken from the line of the exhaust gas equipment; a reaction section 4 including at least a reactor, which is connected to downstream of the separation and capture section 5, contains a reducing agent that generates carbon monoxide through a reduction reaction of carbon dioxide brought into contact with the separated gas, and is capable of separating at least some of oxygen atoms separated from carbon dioxide; a pressure regulating section 7 connected to downstream of the reactor 4 to regulate the pressure of the separated gas supplied to the reactor; and the flow regulating section 6 connected on the upstream of the separation and capture section 5 and regulates the flow rate of the separated gas supplied to the reactor.

In a grain-oriented electrical steel sheet manufacturing process of processing a steel slab having a predetermined composition to a final sheet thickness and then performing primary recrystallization annealing and nitriding treatment, the nitriding treatment is performed in at least two stages of temperatures including high-temperature nitriding and low-temperature nitriding, and a residence time in the high-temperature nitriding is 3 seconds or more and 600 seconds or less. In this way, nitrogen is efficiently diffused into the steel of the steel sheet before secondary recrystallization to precipitate AlN. Such a method can manufacture a grain-oriented electrical steel sheet having excellent magnetic property.

Method and means for suppressing discoloration during thermal treatment of a product of a magnesium containing aluminium alloy, the alloy contains in wt. % Mg: 0.45-12.0, with a preferred range of 0.45-6.0 wt %. The product, being either an extrusion billet, a sheet ingot, a cast product, or a forged product is heated to a temperature T where it is prone to surface discoloration and oxidation, wherein during the thermal treatment it is exposed to a suppressing atmosphere comprising 0.5-5.0% CO.sub.2 gas with a preference for 0.5-1.5% CO.sub.2 gas.

A finish heat treatment apparatus for an iron powder. Raw iron powder is placed on a continuous moving hearth and continuously charged into the apparatus. In a pretreatment zone, the raw iron powder is subjected to a pretreatment of heating the raw iron powder in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas and/or inert gas at 450 to 1100° C. In decarburization, deoxidation, and denitrification zones, the pretreated iron powder is subsequently subjected to at least two treatments of decarburization, deoxidation, and denitrification. In the pretreatment zone, a hydrogen gas and/or an inert gas serving as a pretreatment ambient gas is introduced separately from an ambient gas used in the at least two treatments is introduced from the upstream side of the pretreatment zone and released from the downstream side so as to flow in the same direction as a moving direction of the moving hearth.