Quietly powerful, Air Liquide’s Nexelia for Melting is reshaping industrial furnaces

Reviewed: ad hoc news B2B & Pro desk. Edited and checked on 2026-06-20, 11:21. Details in the imprint.

With Nexelia for Melting, Air Liquide pushes a furnace upgrade that operators can hear and feel long before they read the energy bill. Burners roar differently, flames look tighter, and the control screens show calmer, more stable temperature curves.

What Nexelia for Melting targets

Nexelia for Melting is Air Liquide’s packaged offer for oxy-fuel and oxy-combustion upgrades in energy-intensive furnaces. It is aimed at steel, foundry, non-ferrous and glass producers that want higher throughput without rebuilding the entire line.

The idea is straightforward but demanding in practice. Oxygen-enriched combustion increases flame temperature and can speed up melting, while optimized burner layout and digital control keep emissions and refractory wear in check for years of daily operation.

How the package feels in daily use

In a modernized furnace, operators see the difference on the control panel first. Heat-up times shrink, alarm logs thin out, and setpoint changes translate faster into stable bath temperatures instead of long, nervous waiting periods.

On the shop floor, the flames tend to look shorter and brighter, with a more focused core instead of lazy yellow tongues licking the walls. Fans and flue dampers do less frantic work, because exhaust volumes fall when nitrogen ballast from air is reduced.

Efficiency, emissions and constraints

For management, the draw of Nexelia for Melting is the promise of double gains: higher tons per day and lower specific fuel consumption. In energy-heavy industries, that mix hits both the income statement and the CO? line in sustainability reports.

There are trade-offs. Oxy-fuel operation can change refractory wear patterns and requires careful burner positioning, and oxygen supply contracts become even more central to the cost structure than in classic air-fuel firing.

Integration into existing plants

Air Liquide designs Nexelia for Melting as a solution, not a single gadget. Typical projects bundle process audits, burner retrofits, new control logic and remote performance monitoring into a single multi-year framework.

For plant teams, that means shutdowns are precious. The attractive scenario is a retrofit that drops into a scheduled maintenance window, with commissioning ramped in stages, so operators keep confidence while the furnace learns its new operating envelope.

Where Nexelia for Melting fits in Air Liquide’s strategy

Nexelia for Melting sits in the heart of Air Liquide’s industrial merchant and large-industries business, where long-term gas supply contracts pair with energy-efficiency consulting. The product makes the company more than a commodity oxygen vendor.

Shares of Air Liquide S.A. (FR0000120073) trade on Euronext Paris in euros.

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