International Journal of Applied Glass Science最新文献

Compared with insulating glass, tempered vacuum glass (TVG) is not only safer, but also more effective in sound insulation and heat insulation. In this paper, for the sound insulation performance of tempered vacuum glass, the acoustic wave transfer model of TVG is established, and the equation for sound insulation is deduced by using wave transfer method (WTM). Then the actual sound insulation loss of tempered vacuum glass was tested based on the method of reverberation room and anechoic room. finally, the sound insulation loss of tempered vacuum glass under different factors is analyzed. The results show that the theoretical calculation results are consistent with the experimental results about the general change trend of the sound insulation. The thicker the glass, the better the sound insulation. The more the supports in vacuum layer of tempered vacuum glass, the smaller the sound insulation loss. The thickness of the vacuum layer has different sound insulation loss at different frequencies. When the thickness of the vacuum layer is about 0.25 mm, tempered vacuum glass has the best sound insulation performance. This research will have important guiding significance for the selection of building sound insulation glass and the design of sound insulation glass.

An opal crystallized glass plate, obtained from the addition of fluorine to a soda-lime base, has been structurally characterized and altered in food contact like conditions. The investigations on the pristine glass evidenced the nature of CaF₂, BaF₂, and NaF crystalline phases. Overall a continuum of fully vitreous to glass-ceramic material was noticed with different morphology: the top surface that resembles a soda-lime glass which was prepared as a slab and the highly crystallized bulk using powder. Powder and slab were altered together at 70°C in acetic acid 4% (v/v) imposing a pH of 2.4 for 231 days to 3 years. The bulk powder alteration was characterized by a predominant hydrolysis mechanism impacting the crystals and the glassy matrix, leaving no remaining altered layer at the surface whereas a 1.25 µm thick alteration layer was observed on the top surface of the plate after 231 days of alteration. The mechanisms for the formation of this altered layer as well as the differences between the powder, representative of the bulk opal crystallized glass, and the slab that remains the actual surface in contact with edibles are discussed in the article.

Copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS)-based solar cells are a type of thin-film photovoltaic technology used to convert sunlight into electricity. They are one of the most promising thin-film technologies with high efficiency and low-cost potential. CIGS is a direct band gap material with a high absorption coefficient, around 2 µm thickness can absorb most of the light which can reduce the usage of material. CIGS solar cells have a better temperature coefficient, meaning their efficiency decreases less in high-temperature environments compared to other solar technologies. Furthermore, CIGS solar cells also have excellent low-light performance due to their broad absorption spectrum. This allows them to generate electricity even in partially shaded or cloudy conditions, which can be common in urban environments with tall buildings or trees casting shadows. Thus, CIGS solar cells are also a good option to be used for building-integrated PV (BIPV) systems. The latest cell efficiency record was reached in 2023 with 23.6%. Ongoing research aims to increase efficiency, durability, and cost-effectiveness, making the CIGS thin-film technology a mainstream option for solar energy generation.

The importance of superhydrophilicity of glass surfaces lies in their self-cleaning abilities. The need for antifogging characteristics of soda-lime-silica (SLS-) based window glasses requires feasible solutions. Superhydrophilicity is generally achieved by textured surfaces with suitable features or any chemical modification including thin films. Fabrication of textured surfaces usually involves sophisticated facilities that are often expensive. This paper reveals a novel approach to achieving superhydrophilic SLS surfaces by flame-impingement. The chemical energy of methane gas was converted into thermal energy by a flame torch to reach temperatures just above the softening point of SLS glass. The glass surface was exposed to the flame at a distance of around 100 mm for 10 s. The surface was transformed into a superhydrophilic state with a static contact angle of nearly zero after the treatment. This property was remarkably retained on exposure of the surface to the ambient atmosphere for 3 years of aging. The subsurface structural modifications accountable for the alteration in wetting behavior by the influence of flame-impingement were investigated. High-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of the O1s spectral line evidenced the repolymerization of vicinal silanols into bridging oxygens (BOs), accompanied by the loss of hydrous species (SiOH/H₂O) in the near-surface region. The repolymerized BOs acted as adsorption sites of water molecules to promote superhydrophilicity. Atomic force microscopy exhibited the conversion of an open silica tetrahedral network with nonbridging oxygens into closed rings. The high surface energy of the residual surface nanostructure at the solid/vapor interface was accountable for the superhydrophilicity.

This study pioneers the use of spodumene mineral residue as a primary raw material for producing chemically strengthened glass, addressing concerns related to sustainable waste management. The resulting glasses achieve over 90% transparency at 550 nm, with compressive stress exceeding 1000 MPa and Vickers hardness surpassing 6.6 GPa. As the B₂O₃/SiO₂ ratio increases, the depth of the compressive stress layer (DOL) of the samples shows a trend of initially decreasing and then stabilizing (DOL: 16–24 µm). The compressive stress (CS) of all samples >1000 MPa. Analysis reveals that [BO₄] units hinder ion exchanges while [BO₃] promote strengthening. Furthermore, as the B₂O₃/SiO₂ ratio increases, the refractive index rises, thermal stability decreases, and density initially increases before decreasing, while the trend for molar volume is opposite to that of density. This study provides a potential application solution for the treatment of spodumene mineral residue, promoting green and circular economic development.

Glass-based insulating materials have attracted considerable attention owing to their tailorable properties. It is known that the thermal conductivity of glass ceramics can be greatly influenced by varying their crystallinity. However, the mechanism of such influence in glass–ceramic foams remains poorly understood. In this study, we demonstrate our new findings regarding the correlation between thermal conductivity and crystallinity in silicate glass–ceramic foams. The foams were produced by mixing ZrO₂-containing soda-lime glass powder with CaCO₃ as foaming agent and foam them using a thermochemical approach. ZrO₂ was introduced as a nucleation agent. The crystallinity of the foams was varied by adjusting the heating protocol, i.e., by varying temperature, time, and number of heating cycles. The glass–ceramic foams exhibited relative crystallinities of <30%. The identity of the crystalline phases in the glass–ceramic foams varies with crystallinity. Specifically, cristobalite diminished, but devitrite grew with increasing crystallinity. It was observed that the crystallinity had a nonmonotonic impact on the thermal conductivity of the glass–ceramic foams. The optimum crystallinity for achieving the lowest thermal conductivity was 8–10%, resulting in an approximately 20% lower thermal conductivity compared to noncrystalline. Our findings have implications for the future design of glass–ceramic foams.

Transparent glass–ceramics (GCs) with excellent mechanical properties is a growing demand in the field of optoelectronic devices. In this work, Mg₂SiO₄ nanocrystals embedded transparent GCs were prepared using the melt-quenching method. The effects of the TiO₂ content on the structural and crystallization properties of glass were examined, and the influence of Mg₂SiO₄ crystallization on the depth of layer (DOL) for K–Na ion-exchange was also investigated. The introduction of TiO₂ was advantageous for the enhanced bulk crystallization of Mg₂SiO₄ nanocrystals within the glass matrix. With an increase in the TiO₂ content, the size of Mg₂SiO₄ nanocrystals decreased, leading to an improvement in the transmittance of the GCs. Crystallization of Mg₂SiO₄ nanocrystals promoted the increase in Vickers hardness and ion-exchange DOL obviously, and the Vickers hardness can further be improved by ion-exchange. Ion-exchange resulted in the transformation of NaAlSiO₄ into KAlSiO₄. Results reported here are valuable for the design and preparation of GCs with excellent mechanical and ion-exchange properties.

This research aimed to investigate the compositions of commercial soda–lime–silica glasses currently present in the UK market, as there is a lack of recent research on the subject, with the most recent studies now being over 20 years old. This study involved sampling and analyzing the compositions of over 30 commercial soda–lime–silica container and float glass samples, primarily from the UK market, in 2022 to 2023. Based on the results, the characteristics of these commercial glasses has been evaluated using multiple property models and analysis methods. In the first part, we illustrated the opportunities for glass manufacturers to modify or adjust their glass compositions to enable lower melting temperatures, thereby reducing energy demand and fuel carbon emissions. This can help the glass industry meet its net zero carbon emissions targets. It de-risks compositional modifications for a glass manufacturer by highlighting that other manufacturers have already successfully commercially implemented such changes.

We fabricated anti-glare (AG) coatings on glass sheets by spraying alkoxide-derived silica sols and demonstrated that the water-to-alkoxide ratio is one of the key factors for improving AG performance and sol stability. We synthesized silica sols using tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), water, nitric acid, and denatured ethanol and sprayed them on sheets of chemically strengthened glass. The molar ratios of water to TEOS (r) were 3, 7, and 14. The sol with r = 7 provided a higher arithmetic-mean height (Sa), smaller autocorrelation length (Sal), and better optical properties (lower gloss, higher haze, and lower sparkle level) than the sol with r = 3. An excessive amount of water at r = 14 yielded a large Sal and a high sparkle level. As the storage time of the sols increased, higher r values caused a more pronounced increase in Sa. Although none of the sols showed noticeable temporal changes during dynamic light scattering measurements, solutions with higher r values exhibited a more remarkable reduction in the retention time during liquid chromatography with a styrene-divinylbenzene matrix. Hence, an excessive amount of water was thought to cause hydrophilization of the polymerized species during storage.

The sodium aluminosilicate (NAS) glass family is important for many different industrial applications, but glass relaxation has not yet been thoroughly studied in this system. Thermal analysis techniques such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and modulated differential scanning calorimetry (MDSC) can provide insight into the enthalpy relaxation of glass by measuring the glass transition temperature (T_g), activation energy, and enthalpy of relaxation. MDSC is mostly used to study nonoxide and low T_g glasses, and there is much debate about whether the nonreversing heat flow analysis method is accurate. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper using MDSC to study these NAS compositions, and one of few papers to report MDSC on high T_g oxide glasses. We report on one set of modulation conditions that obtain a linear response using Lissajous curves, as well as comparing the activation energy calculated from DSC with the enthalpy of relaxation obtained from MDSC. Our results show that the activation energy and enthalpy of relaxation do not give the same compositional minimum in relaxation, and therefore more work is needed to investigate the validity of the nonreversing heat flow approach for high T_g oxide glasses.