We don’t focus a lot on the glass business once we speak about chopping carbon emissions. We give attention to transportation, electrical energy era, cement manufacturing, transport, and air journey, however overlook glass-making. And but, manufacturing glass is answerable for about 86 million tons of carbon dioxide yearly. That’s not an insignificant sum.
On June 30, 2023, Penn State College introduced LionGlass, a brand new product that’s ten instances extra resistant to break than soda lime silicate glass and makes use of about half as a lot vitality within the manufacturing course of. The analysis workforce just lately filed a patent software as a primary step towards bringing the product to market. Sadly, the photograph included within the press launch tells us virtually nothing about LionGlass.
Altering The Approach Glass Is Made
“Our purpose is to make glass manufacturing sustainable for the long run,” stated John Mauro, a professor of supplies science and engineering at Penn State and lead researcher on the venture. “LionGlass eliminates using carbon containing batch supplies and considerably lowers the melting temperature of glass.”
Soda lime silicate glass, the frequent glass utilized in on a regular basis gadgets from home windows to glass tableware, is made by melting three major supplies: quartz sand, soda ash, and limestone. Soda ash is sodium carbonate and limestone is calcium carbonate, each of which launch carbon dioxide as they’re melted. (Limestone can be a major cause why making cement releases a lot carbon dioxide.) “Throughout the glass melting course of, the carbonates decompose into oxides and produce carbon dioxide, which will get launched into the ambiance,” Mauro stated.
The vast majority of the carbon dioxide emissions come from the vitality required to warmth furnaces to the excessive temperatures wanted for melting glass. With LionGlass, the melting temperatures are lowered by about 300 to 400 levels Celsius. That in flip results in a couple of 30% discount in vitality consumption in comparison with typical soda lime glass.
LionGlass Is Virtually Unbreakable
Not solely is LionGlass simpler on the atmosphere, it’s additionally a lot stronger than typical glass. The researchers stated they had been stunned to search out that the brand new glass, named after Penn State’s Nittany Lion mascot, possesses considerably larger crack resistance in comparison with typical glass.
A number of the workforce’s glass compositions had such a robust crack resistance that the glass wouldn’t crack, even underneath a one kilogram-force load from a Vickers diamond indenter. LionGlass is at the least 10 instances as crack-resistant in comparison with commonplace soda lime glass, which kinds cracks underneath a load of about 0.1 kilograms of power. The researchers defined that the boundaries of LionGlass haven’t but been discovered, as a result of they reached the utmost load allowed by the indentation gear. “We saved rising the burden on LionGlass till we reached the utmost load the gear will enable,” stated Nick Clark, a postdoctoral fellow in Mauro’s lab. “It merely wouldn’t crack.”
Mauro defined that crack resistance is among the most necessary qualities to check for in glass as a result of it’s how the fabric ultimately fails. Over time, glass develops microcracks alongside the floor, which turn out to be weak factors. When a bit of glass breaks, it’s as a consequence of weaknesses attributable to present microcracks. Glass that’s proof against forming microcracks within the first place is very useful, he added.
“Harm resistance is a very necessary property for glass,” Mauro stated. “Take into consideration all of the methods we depend on the power of glass, within the automotive business and electronics business, structure, and communication expertise like fiber optic cables. Even in well being care, vaccines are saved in sturdy, chemically resistant glass packaging. Mauro is hoping that the improved power of LionGlass means the merchandise created from it may be lighter weight. Since LionGlass is 10 instances extra injury resistant than present glass, it may very well be considerably thinner.
Thinner & Lighter
“We should always be capable of scale back the thickness and nonetheless get the identical stage of injury resistance,” Mauro stated. “If now we have a lighter weight product, that’s even higher for the atmosphere as a result of we use much less uncooked supplies and want much less vitality to provide it. Even downstream, that reduces the vitality required to move the glass, so it’s a successful scenario for everybody.”
Mauro notes that the analysis workforce remains to be evaluating the potential of LionGlass. They’ve filed a patent software for the whole household of glass, which suggests there are numerous compositions throughout the LionGlass household, every with its personal distinct properties and potential purposes. They’re now within the technique of exposing numerous compositions of LionGlass to an array of chemical environments to check the way it reacts. The outcomes will assist the workforce develop a greater understanding of how LionGlass can be utilized all through the world.
“People realized the right way to manufacture glass greater than 5,000 years in the past and since then it has been essential to bringing fashionable civilization to the place it’s in the present day,” Mauro stated. “Now, we’re at a time limit once we want it to assist form the longer term, as we face international challenges resembling environmental points, renewable vitality, vitality effectivity, well being care and concrete improvement. Glass can play a significant function in fixing these points, and we’re able to contribute.”
Potential Makes use of For LionGlass
There are any variety of potential advantages to LionGlass. Possibly Elon Musk might use it within the Cybertruck so its glass wouldn’t break when hit with a sledgehammer throughout demonstrations. Tesla glass roofs are already remarkably sturdy, however may they be even stronger and lighter in the event that they had been product of LionGlass?
Photo voltaic panels use a sheet of glass to guard their internal workings from the weather. Think about if tomorrow’s photo voltaic panels may very well be made extra sturdy whereas additionally being lighter, due to LionGlass. Lighter panels would put much less stress on rooftops and racking methods, probably resulting in decrease prices for photo voltaic installations.
The upshot of this information is that researchers are consistently discovering new methods to do frequent issues like make metal or cement in a means that slashes carbon emissions. Simply think about if the world had begun that quest in earnest in 1988 when Dr. James Hansen first testified earlier than Congress concerning the connection between carbon dioxide within the ambiance and international heating.
The world of science is discovering all types of recent methods to make the merchandise fashionable societies need and want in a means that’s much less damaging to the Earth’s atmosphere. Stronger glass with decrease emissions is only one of them, however it might nicely be a part of a mixture of new merchandise that don’t require destruction of the atmosphere in an effort to be commercially profitable.
I do not like paywalls. You do not like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Right here at CleanTechnica, we applied a restricted paywall for some time, however it at all times felt unsuitable — and it was at all times robust to resolve what we should always put behind there. In idea, your most unique and finest content material goes behind a paywall. However then fewer folks learn it! We simply do not like paywalls, and so we have determined to ditch ours.
Sadly, the media enterprise remains to be a tricky, cut-throat enterprise with tiny margins. It is a unending Olympic problem to remain above water and even maybe — gasp — develop. So …
