Manufacturing of glass

Prepared by:
Bikash Kumar Mahato
Assistant Professor
IOE, Pulchowk Campus
 Glass
• Physically glass is a rigid and undercooled liquid that have
– No definite melting point and
– Extremely high viscosity (> 1012 Pa.s) to avoid crystallization
• Chemically glass is a union of non-volatile inorganic oxides,
resulting from
– Decomposition and fusion of alkali and alkaline earth compounds, sand
and other glass constituents; ending in a product with small amount of
non-vitreous material in suspension
• Many uses because of its transparency, high chemical resistance,
effective electrical insulator and ability to contain a vacuum
• Brittle material with compressive strength >> its tensile strength
• Recently more strengthening techniques have been developed to the
point where glass can be employed in more arduous environments.
• Roughly 800 different glass compositions are produced, some with
particular emphasis on one property and some with attention to a
balanced set of properties.
 Composition
• Lime (CaO), silica (SiO2) and soda (Na₂O) are primary
(major) ingredients of the glass contributing to more than 90%
of all glass of the world
• Remaining 10% coming from other minor ingredient
• Some of the minor ingredients are B2O3, Al2O3, Fe2O3, As2O3,
MgO, K2O, PbO, ZnO, BaO, Sb2O3, LiO2, SO3
• Despite of major and important effects produced in glass by
minor ingredients, they cannot be treated as major ingredients
• Fused silica glass is made up of 100% silica (SiO2)
• Minor changes in major ingredients and major changes in
minor ingredients are very common in glass industry; and
thousands of new formulations found
• Most important factors in the glass making:
– Viscosity of molten oxides and
– Relation between viscosity and composition
 Types of glasses
• In general commercial glasses fall into several classes.
– Fused silica
– Alkali silicates
– Soda-lime glass
– Lead glass
– Borosilicate glass
– Special glasses
– Glass fibers
• Assignment:
– Briefly discuss about different class of commercial glasses.
 Raw materials
• Large tonnage of glass sand are used
– It constitutes high silica and low iron oxides, chromium, cobalt and other
colorants
• Soda ash, salt cake and limestone (or lime) are required to flux this
silica
• Requirement of minor ingredients lead oxide, potassium carbonate
(pearl ash), saltpeter, borax, boric acid, arsenic trioxide, feldspar and
fluorspar is also high depending on type of glass
• Variety of metallic oxides, carbonates and other salts required for
colored glass
• For finishing operations, abrasives and hydrofluoric acid are consumed
• Sand should be almost pure quartz for making glass
– In glass sand, iron content should be < 0.45% for tableware and <0.015%
for optical glass
• Soda (Na2O): supplied by dense soda ash (Na2CO3)
• Other sources of soda include NaHCO3, salt cake, and NaNO3.
 Conti.
• Lime: limestone and burnt lime from dolomite (CaCO3.MgCO3) good
sources
• Feldspars: R2O.Al2O3.6SiO2where R2O is Na2O or K2O or a mixture of
two
– Cheap, pure and fusible and are composed entirely of glass-forming
oxides
– Supply Na2O or K2O and SiO2
– Al2O3 content serves to lower the melting point of the glass and to retard
devitrification (Crystallization of glass).
• Borax: minor ingredient that supplies both Na2O and boric oxide
– Has high fluxing power, lowers the expansion coefficient and increases
chemical durability of glass
• Salt cake (a minor ingredient of glass) and also other sulphate such as
ammonium and barium sulfate are frequently used in all types of glass
– Salt cake is said to remove troublesome scum from tank furnaces
– Carbon should be used with sulfates to reduce them to sulfites
• Arsenic trioxide: Added to facilitate removal of bubbles
 Conti.
• Sodium or potassium nitrates: to oxidize iron and make it
less noticeable in finished glass
• Cullet: it is crushed glass from imperfect articles, trim and
other waste glass
– Facilitates melting and utilizes waste material
– As low as 10% of charge or as high as 80%•
• Refractory blocks for glass industry have been developed
especially because of severe conditions encountered; a
few tanks are of.
– Sintered zirconia, alumina, mullite, mullite-alumina and
electrocast zirconia-alumina-silica, alumina and chrome-
alumina
– Furnace operating temperatures are limited mainly by silica-
brick crowns, which are economical to use in the glass
industry
 Chemical reactions
• Na2CO3 + aSiO2 → Na2O.aSiO2 + CO2
• CaCO3 + bSiO2 → CaO.bSiO2 + CO2
• Na2SO4 + cSiO2 + C → Na2O.cSiO2 + SO2 + CO

• In an ordinary window glass, molar ratios are

approximately 1.5 mol Na2O, 1 mol CaO and 5 mol
SiO2
 Glass manufacture
• Typical manufacturing sequence can be broken down into
following steps:
– Transportation of raw materials to plant
– Sizing of some raw materials
– Storage of raw materials
– Conveying, weighing and mixing raw materials and feeding
them into glass furnace
– Burning of fuel to secure temperature needed for glass
formation
– Reactions in furnace to form glass
– Saving of heat by regeneration or recuperation
– Shaping of glass products
– Annealing of glass products
– Finishing of glass products
 Manufacturing Procedure
• For the manufacturing of flat glass the
procedure has been branched into four main
steps i.e.
– Melting
– Shaping or forming
– Annealing
– Finishing
 Conti.

Fig: Manufacture of Glass

 Melting
• Amount of raw materials for the batch are calculated from
the chemical composition of individual components.
• Minor ingredients are weighed accurately and given a
preliminary mixing with one of the dry batch ingredients
before adding to the main charge then to the batch mixer
which is a revolving drum provided with blades to lift and
spread the material uniformly.
• After proper mixing of ingredient it is charged into the
furnace.
• Two types furnaces are used for glass melting
– Pot furnace
– Tank furnace
 Conti.
• Pot furnace
• In pot furnace, glass is melted in open or covered
pots (closed pots) of fire clay placed inside the
combustion chambers of the furnace fired directly
with coal (used in bangle industry) or producer
gas (used tableware manufacture).
• Pot furnaces are generally used for small scale
melting and fabrication by hand, for the
production of glass bangles, table wares, lamp
wares, thermos-flask etc.
 Conti.

Fig: Pot furnace

 Conti.
• Tank furnace
• In this process, cross flame regenerative type of gas or oil
used. The port is arranged along the side of the tank above
the glass level those on any one side is alternatively
incoming and outgoing ports.
• Manufacturing large quantities of a particular type of glass
tank furnace is used. e.g. manufacture of sheet glass
container ware, lamp shells and resistance glasses,
continuous tank furnaces are generally used.
• The regeneration system consists of chambers filled with
open brickwork situated on either side of the furnace,
through which hot waste gases and air required for
combustion pass alternatively at regular intervals of about
30 minutes.
 Conti.
• The flame acts directly upon the raw batch and
molten glass. The temperature inside the furnace
is generally kept at 870-9850C.
• The molten glass kept at a constant level by
continuous charging rate which is equal to the rate
of withdrawal from the furnace. After withdrawal
from the furnace, slow cooling of molten glass is
carried to minimize permanent strain.
• The higher the temperature used for reheating,
lesser will be time to remove the strain.
Cross-Section of Tank furnace
 Tank furnace
• Cross-section of tank furnace is shown in previous slide.
• This tank is built of refractory blocks Size: 38× 9 × 1.5m and
capacity: 1350 tons of molten glass
• Batch materials are charged into one end of a large tank
• Glass forms a pool in hearth of furnace, across which flames play
alternately from one side and other
• Sufficient time allowed for bubbles to rise and leave or dissolve in
the molten glass; and is finning process
• Fined glass is worked out of opposite end of tank, and operation is
continuous
• Walls gradually corrode under the action of hot glass.
• Quality of the construction blocks strongly affect quality of glass
and life of the tank. Thus great attention should be devoted to glass
furnace refractories
• Day tanks are very small tank furnaces which supply a day's demand
(1-10 tons of molten glass); these are heated either electro-thermally
or by gas
 Conti.
• Tank furnace shown in previous slide is a "regenerative" furnace
and operates in two cycles with two sets of checkerwork
chambers
• Flame gases loses some of their heat in passing across the
furnace containing molten- glass. Then flame gases go downward
through one set of chambers stacked with open brickwork or
checkerwork
• By this, lot of sensible heat content of gases is removed and
checkerwork reach temperatures ranging from 1500°C near the
furnace to 650°C on exit side
• Air is preheated by being passed up through other previously
heated regenerative chamber simultaneously and is mixed with
burned fuel gas
• Thus resulting flame is at a higher temperature than would have
been possible if air had not been preheated
• At every 20 to 30min, the flow of air-fuel mixture (or cycle) is
reversed
 Conti.
• On reversal, mixture enters the furnace from opposite side
through the previously heated checkerwork, passing through
the original checkerwork, now considerably cooled
• By this regenerative principle, much heat is saved and a
higher temperature is reached
• Once regenerative furnace is heated, temperature of at least
1200°C is maintained at all times
• Much of heat is lost by radiation from furnace, and a
smaller amount is expended in melting
• Temperature would become so high that the molten glass
would dissolve or corrode them. And in order to avoid it the
walls are allowed to cool somewhat by radiation or water
cooling pipes are often placed in the furnace walls
 Shaping or forming
• Glass may be shaped by either machine or hand
molding
• Most important factor in machine molding is that
design of glass should be such that article is completed
in a very few seconds. Glass changes from a viscous
liquid to a clear solid within this relatively short time
• Thus design problems such as flow of heat, stability of
metals, and clearance of bearings are very complicated
to address in machine molding.
• Common types of machine shaped glasses:
– Window glass, plate glass, float glass, bottles, light bulbs
and tubing glasses
 Conti.
• Following are the different ways fabrication
– Blowing
– Casting
– Drawing
– Pressing
– Rolling
– Spinning
• Assignment:
– Briefly write about different ways of glass fabrication.
 Annealing
• Glass articles, after being manufactured, are to be
cooled down slowly and gradually.
• This process of slow and homogeneous cooling of
glass articles is known as annealing of glass.
Annealing of glass is a very important process.
• If glass articles are allowed to cool down rapidly,
– the superficial layer of glass cools down first, as glass
is a bad conductor of heat.
– The inter portion remains comparatively hot and it is,
therefore in a state of strain.
 Conti.
• Hence such glass article breaks to pieces under
very slight shocks or disturbances
• Following are the methods of annealing
– Flue Treatment
– Oven treatment
• Assignment:
– Write short note on two methods of annealing.
 Finishing
• Annealed glass must undergo certain finishing
operations which are simple but very important;
and finishing operations include
– cleaning,.
– grinding,
– polishing,
– cutting,
– sandblasting,
• All these are not required for every glass, but one
or more is almost always necessary
 Types of Special glasses
• Some of the new glass products with improved properties
have been listed here i.e.
– Fused silica glass
– High silica glass
– Colored and coated glass
– Safety glass
• Laminated safety glass
• Tempered glass
– Fiber glass
– Glass ceramic
– Photochromic silicate glass
• Assignment:
– Briefly discuss about types of special glasses.
 References
• Austin. G.T.,”Shreve’s Chemical Process
Industries”, McGraw-Hill, 5th Edition,1985.