- By Chris Barahniuk
- business technology reporter
image source, Pennsylvania State University
Professor John Mauro has made a career out of studying glass
Laughter erupted on the phone when John Mauro posed my question to one of his students. How many mallets would it take to break the new glass they developed?
Professor Mauro of Pennsylvania State University said, “You have to stretch your body,” explaining that the glass must first be deeply scratched with a diamond or tungsten carbide needle, and then the doctoral students must hit it with a hammer. says. Mallet.
Professor Mauro claims the invention, called LionGlass, is ten times stronger than standard glass. Imagine a wine bottle intact after falling on your tiled kitchen floor.
However, since the study has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and the research team has only recently applied for a patent, few details about LionGlass have been revealed.
One important point is that unlike standard glass, no soda ash or limestone is required to produce this glass. Substitute ingredients are now a closely guarded secret.
people have ever We have been making glass for thousands of years. Though prized for its gem-like properties and the fact that it could be molded into complex shapes, it still always had an Achilles heel. it shatters. But it probably won’t last very long.
From car windshields to champagne flutes, the applications that benefit from more durable glass are endless.
There is a lot of competition going on over who can produce the strongest, most sustainable glass at an affordable price. It could change the world.
“If you really want to have an impact on your carbon footprint, you have to work with sodium silicate lime,” Mauro said.
Soda ash and limestone release carbon dioxide (CO2) when heated with silica sand, a common recipe for glass, and the manufacturing process requires high temperatures and consumes a lot of energy.
Producers say lion glass is very strong and uses less energy to produce than ordinary glass.
In contrast, LionGlass does not use these carbon-rich materials and its manufacturing temperature is 300°C-400°C lower.
The problem is that this glass is less heat-resistant than other glasses, so it cannot be used for high-demand smartphone and tablet screens.
To manufacture these, the glass must be able to withstand the high temperatures during the manufacturing process.
“If the dimensions of the glass change during that process, the pixels can actually be misaligned,” Mauro says.
But LionGlass could have many other uses, such as glassware and building windows.
Existing glass manufacturing facilities should be able to produce without any equipment changes, and glass once produced requires no further work. Its strength is “an inherent property of the glass structure,” says Professor Mauro.
Robert Ritchie of the University of California, Berkeley, said LionGlass could affect “basically anywhere you can see glass,” except for smartphones.
Professor Ritchie and others develop opaque glass stronger than steel about 10 years ago.
Sheryl Atkinson, of Canada’s Atkinson Architects, says new types of glass could help architects rethink how they use the material. LionGlass is so strong that it may be possible to make window glass even thinner, for example.
“Then the insulating glass units and triple glazing would definitely be lighter,” she said, noting that this would reduce the carbon footprint associated with transporting the glass.
The smartphone uses Corning Gorilla Glass.
However, one problem with current window technology is that the plastic seals around the edges of double or triple glazed units often fail after decades. The quality of the glass itself isn’t everything.
In addition, architects, including Ms. Atkinson, have recognized the importance of energy efficiency and have reduced the use of glass in their designs to reduce heat loss from buildings in winter and to prevent excessive indoor heating on sunny days. already reduced.
Corning, Mauro’s former employer, is best known for Gorilla Glass, which is used in smartphones, tablets and TV screens, but also for ultra-tough pharmaceutical vial glass, including for the coronavirus vaccine, and architectural glass for buildings. products are also manufactured.
Corning chief technology officer Jamin Amin told the BBC the company was working on a project to look at “very high-end” energy-saving windows.
One way it can be used, he says, is by placing a very thin layer of glass between two conventional panes of glass, creating a triple-glazed unit that is thinner and lighter than current windows. .
cell phone glass
Corning reported weak smartphone demand in its quarterly earnings update in July.
But Amin said consumer electronics remains a key growth area for the company.
Corning says smartphone makers are using glass not only on the screen but also on the body of the device, partly to allow the phone to transmit and receive high-frequency 5G signals.
Meanwhile, durability continues to improve.
Corning’s Victus 2 Gorilla Glass, launched last year, can survive a one-meter drop onto concrete. “This was the first time we had glass with certified recycled content,” says Dr. Amin. “We are moving in that direction more and more.”
One of the benefits of recycling glass is the lower temperatures required to manufacture new products, reducing the carbon footprint.
image source, Getty Images
Glass manufacturing is an energy intensive activity
Morningstar Research Service analyst William Carwin says Corning accounts for more than half of the market for glass used in the increasingly popular large-screen television displays, citing Corning’s success in making glass. Emphasize.
One of the fastest growing applications for glass is solar panels. “That’s something I don’t think you would have asked me five years ago,” says Curwin. “And now it’s definitely a much bigger event for the glass industry.”
Solar panel makers are pushing for stronger, thinner glass to reduce the weight of the panels, he added.
But smartphones will continue to be an important area of innovation, says CCS Insight’s Ben Wood.
For example, a foldable phone “must withstand tens or hundreds of thousands of folds over the life of the device,” he says.
He said consumers still have doubts about whether foldable phones are really robust enough.
“The dream is unbreakable glass,” added Wood, but it remains a dream for now.