Overview
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ABSTRACT
Glass products have been manufactured for millennia. This article deals with the specific nature of glass and its principal properties. Various coloring technologies, as well as solar protection glasses, illustrate the importance of glass composition. The role of the structure of the glass itself, and especially its surface, for its mechanical properties and as a layer support, is essential. More complex products are then presented as well as certain technologies for the industrial production of glass. This article concludes on possible future developments of this material.
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Read the articleAUTHOR
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Jean-Claude LEHMANN: Member of the Académie des technologies Former Saint-Gobain Research Director
INTRODUCTION
Pure silica, SiO 2 , commonly exists in two different structures:
quartz, a naturally occurring crystal with a trigonal structure;
vitreous silica, whose disordered structure is that of an amorphous material or glass.
The exact nature of an amorphous structure is complex and continues to raise all kinds of questions. In its February 2005 issue, the CNRS journal ranks "the obscure nature of glass" among the ten great enigmas of physics! We'll only touch briefly on industrial glass manufacturing processes, which continue to evolve considerably, thanks in particular to advances in mathematical modelling. In this dossier, we focus mainly on industrial glass products and current trends in technological developments in this field.
Unlike silica, a pure material (SiO 2 ), glass is a material with a complex composition. Often 8 to 10 different oxides ensure its properties: melting temperature and viscosity, mechanical properties, scratchability, chemical resistance, color, etc.
But what elements can be used to develop glass products? There are at least five, although the reality can often be more complex:
glass composition;
the structure of the glass matrix ;
glass surface;
the deposition of thin layers on the glass surface;
finally, the production of complex glass products.
In this dossier, we'll just choose one or two examples from each of these categories.
Discovered, seemingly by chance, almost 4,000 years ago, glass was not a totally unknown material. Indeed, glass in its various forms had always existed in nature, and had been noted by early man for its particular characteristics, notably its hardness, brilliance and polish. While fulgurite, produced by the impact of lightning on sand, seems to have been little used, obsidian, of volcanic origin, was immediately of interest to men, who used it to make arrowheads... and to women, who used it to make mirrors, which were said to reflect the souls of those who looked into them! Stranger still, certain sponges at the bottom of the oceans use a little-known process to produce long, extremely flexible glass needles called spicules, enabling them to cling to the ground.
Pliny the Elder reports that merchants of natron, a hydrated sodium carbonate used to desiccate mummies, having used blocks of...
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Glass formulation and glass products
Bibliography
Directory
Main glass producers
Saint-Gobain (flat glass).
Pikington (flat glass).
Asahi Glass (flat glass).
PPG (flat glass).
Saint-Gobain (hollow glass).
Owens Illinois (hollow glass).
Owens Corning (reinforcement fibers).
Saint-Gobain (glass wool)....
Economic data
2008 data
Flat glass: 10 million tonnes.
Hollow glass: 22 million tonnes.
Cups: 1.5 million tonnes.
Reinforcing fibers: 820,000 tonnes.
Other: 800,000 tonnes.
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