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Lehigh Researchers Make Single Glass Crystal

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Lehigh Researchers Make Single Glass Crystal

Lehigh Researchers Make Single Glass Crystal

If you know anything about glass, you know that it’s a unique material. Glass is formed in a liquid state, and as it cools, it hardens. Unlike other solid materials, glass doesn’t form a standard crystalline structure. For reasons that aren’t clearly understood, glass cools and hardens before it can achieve the hallmark crystal lattice that defines most solids.

Another thing about glass is that once it is formed from raw materials, it can be reheated to the point of melting and reformed into any other state. It takes less heat to melt glass than it does to make glass from raw materials, so the melting point of glass is critical to a discovery by researchers at Lehigh University.

Single crystals are key to the workings of solar cells. For the solar cells to move energy efficiently, they rely on single crystals that have been ordered in a particular way. Single crystals can manage both light and heat, but as it turns out, it’s hard to manufacture single crystals of glass.

Lehigh researchers have discovered a manufacturing technique that allows them to turn solid glass into single crystals without melting the glass. Being able to create single crystals reliably and at a relatively low cost could enable the development of more efficient, less expensive solar cells. Single crystals are also useful in superconductors. In addition to being able to create single crystals, the production technique allows the researchers to create complex or customized shapes using single crystals.

The researchers used a laser beam to “write” single crystals by heating glass to a temperature that is too low to melt the glass, but high enough to allow crystallization. Laser fabrication allows very precise ordering of single crystals and could significantly lower the cost and speed production of solar cells.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Solar Giga, via Flickr.com

Glass history may need a rewrite

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Glass history may need a rewrite

Glass history may need a rewrite

The accepted history of glass says that glassmaking first arose in Mesopotamia about 3,600 years ago. But researchers from Harvard University and Cranfield University in England want the world to know something. There’s a growing body of evidence to suggest that glassmaking originated in Egypt, and that the earliest Mesopotamian glasses were probably just cheap copies.

The widely accepted theory about the origin of glass originates from archaeological finds at an ancient Mesopotamian site known as Nuzi. The Nuzi site yielded a number of glass artifacts, including glass jewelry and containers.

But the Nuzi site, which is in modern-day Iran, yielded artifacts that come from a broad time span. New testing shows that the earliest artifacts are only about 3,400 years old, based on the age of the sediment they were found in. Some of the Nuzi artifacts are relatively new, dating only to the 1800’s.

The trouble with the new timeline is that the artifacts aren’t quite as old as scientists had previously thought. In addition, the glass objects in Mesopotamia are relatively simple and feature one predominant color: blue. The pieces are crude in comparison to glasses being made in Egypt around the same time.

By contrast, Egyptian glass was of much higher quality and was more sophisticated, both in design and in the range of colors and objects discovered. Since glassmaking is a craft, the sophistication of the work is an indication of the length of time the craft has been practiced.

The simplicity of the artifacts and Nuzi, when compared to the sophistication of the earliest glass pieces from Egypt suggest to the researchers that glass first emerged as a craft in Egypt, and the Mesopotamian discoveries at Nuzi were simple, less sophisticated copies of glass that was being created in Egypt.

The researchers say that more work and analysis needs to be done to determine the true and authoritative story on the origin of glass, and that the answer to that question may come by more in-depth analysis of the earliest glass works.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: smallbrainfield, via Flickr.com

Glass Yankee Candle products recalled

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Glass Yankee Candle products recalled

Glass Yankee Candle products recalled

Yankee Candles is voluntarily recalling about 31,000 scented candles in square glass holders that the company sold between September 2016 and November 2016. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which investigated consumer complaints regarding the product, lit candles can generate enough heat to crack the glass holders.

The CPSC received reports of 16 candleholders that broke while the candle was lit. The broken candleholders could cause a laceration injury, but the CPSC was not aware of any injuries that had occurred due to the defect.

Yankee Candle encourages consumers who purchased the company’s Luminous Collection candles to return the product (in any condition) to the company for a full refund. The scented candles were produced in six fragrances, including Sea Salt and Coral, Blackberry and Sage, Apple Blossom and Melon, Sugarcane and Honey, Pine and Sandalwood, and Cinnamon and Cedar. The recalled products originally retailed for $35.

Glass that is intended for use around heat sources should be tempered for safety. Tempered glass can resist heat damage up to about 400°. Glass has become a very popular decorating material. Tempering the glass can not only help the glass resist sudden or significant changes in temperature, it can also help the glass to absorb impacts better without shattering.

If you intend to use glass in large volumes to decorate your home – as a wall covering or countertop material – consult with a local glass shop before installing plate glass. A glass shop can provide custom fit, tempered glass for use in your home. Tempered glass cannot be cut once it has been heat-treated, so it must be fit prior to heat treatment.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Consumer Product Safety Commission/Yankee Candle

Embattled Portland Glass Furnace Moves To Mexico

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Embattled Portland Glass Furnace Moves To Mexico


Embattled Portland Glass Furnace Moves To Mexico

Uroboros, one of the Portland glass furnaces at the center of a controversy regarding toxic heavy metal emissions, has been sold to a California company that intends to move the company to Mexico. Owner Eric Lovell had previously said that the company would close in early 2017, because it was unable to cope with new exhaust filtration requirements.

The new regulations were put into place after officials from the State of Oregon and the US Environmental Protection Agency discovered high levels of toxic metals around the plant. Bullseye Glass, another Portland glass furnace, has installed a massive new filtration system designed to capture toxic heavy metals before they escape the company’s plant.

Bullseye and Uroboros are two major suppliers of colored art glass in the United States. Since the discovery of the plants’ emissions, the US EPA has been conducting tests at other furnaces around the country to determine whether they should comply with EPA emissions regulations. Prior to the discovery of high levels of toxic emissions, the furnaces were exempt from meeting EPA regulations because they were not believed to be in continuous operation.

The furnaces voluntarily reduced production of certain colors of glass to reduce their toxic emissions to acceptable levels prior to installing pollution control systems.

Uroboros was purchased by Oceanside Glasstile, which will move all of Uroboros’ operations to a facility in Tiajuana. According to Lovell, the Portland facility will begin a staged shutdown on February 1. Bullseye Glass will continue to operate, having recently completed the installation of a bag filtration system that will reduce the plant’s toxic emissions to nearly zero. Bullseye increased its production levels late this year, but is now addressing concerns about increased selenium emissions, and additional groundwater contamination stemming from rainwater runoff from the facility’s roof.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: born 1945, via Flickr.com

Glass may boost battery power safely

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Glass may boost battery power safely

Glass may boost battery power safely

Researchers at Iowa State University will spend the next three years looking at glass as a possible solid electrolyte for batteries. If glass proves to be a good medium, the resulting rechargeable batteries could be safer and last longer. They could also be used in a broad range of devices.

Traditional battery design has relied on liquid eletrolytes to help charged particles travel between a battery’s anode and its cathode. Rechargeable batteries use chemicals like lithium to do the heavy lifting, but lithium isn’t very stable, and it can overheat or ignite. That’s a flaw that many portable electronics have suffered from in recent years.

As the demand for power increases, the size of the battery must also increase. The practical size of a battery is limited by a few concerns – weight, size and safety. To ensure that batteries remain relatively safe, engineers have sacrificed their size. That means battery-operated devices must be recharged more frequently, and they harness only a fraction of the power they could store at any given time.

Using a solid electrolyte would eliminate problems with leakage and volatility, and could increase the amount of power a battery could hold. The Iowa State University researchers believe that glass may be the ideal solid electrolyte medium, but more research needs to be done to figure out how to get charged particles to move through solids.

The research, which is funded by a three-year grant from the US Department of Energy, could answer that question. Conventional silica-based glass is roundly recognized as an insulator – a material that frustrates the movement of charged particles. But sulfide glasses are much more conductive, and may provide a starting point for finding and understanding conductive glasses.

The team’s research could lead to the development of novel, conductive glasses and could demonstrate the usefulness of solid electrolytes in rechargeable batteries.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: J. Aaron Farr, via Flickr.com

3D Glass printing may emerge in 2017

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3D Glass printing may emerge in 2017

3D Glass printing may emerge in 2017

An Israeli company, Micron 3DP may deliver a 3-D glass printer for alpha-testing sometime in 2017. The unusual characterization of glass – a not-quite-liquid solid or a not-quite-solid liquid – may make it an ideal medium for 3D printing.

Programmable printing devices may find use in a wide range of applications, from scientific to artistic. Glass is liquid at high temperatures, and artisans have used this to craft glass into virtually any shape. Being able to “print” a glass object on demand, however, hasn’t been tried.

In 2015, Micron 3DP claimed credit for being the first to “print” with molten glass. The resulting product isn’t the highly transparent, smooth-finished delicate glass that you’d see coming out of an artisan’s shop. Instead, the products are made from precisely coiled, small streams of molten glass, that are painstakingly looped on top of each other to make the final 3-D form. The resulting product is very solid – more like a glass paperweight than a piece of fine stemware.

Nonetheless, the ability to print glass objects is attractive to those who require specialized glassware to complete their work. Micron 3DP promises that the new printer can deliver much more sophisticated pieces made from conventional soda-lime materials. The improvement comes thanks to the new printer’s ability to work with molten glass at a thickness of 100 microns. Previous glass printing was limited to material that was about 4,000 microns thick.

The much finer control provides a finished product that is more densely packed and far more transparent than earlier attempts at 3D glass printing. In addition, the fineness of the molten glass medium as it leaves the printer will allow the device to make much more delicate objects.

The current printer is limited to making objects no bigger than a standard pint glass, but future improvements could lead to devices that can print larger products.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Samuel Huron, via Flickr.com

Iconic Glass Structures – Langen Foundation

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Iconic Glass Structures – Langen Foundation

Iconic Glass Structures – Langen Foundation

The Langen Foundation is an art museum located in Berlin on the former NATO Hombroich-Neuss Missile Station. The Langen Foundation building is part of the larger Museum Insel Hombroich complex. It is made from reinforced concrete, steel and glass. The building’s design includes a double “skin” of glass and concrete.

First opened to the public in 2004, the Langen Foundation features two partially underground exhibition buildings housing three major exhibition spaces. The entire Langen Foundation Museum offers about 1,300 square meters of space, and its collection is focused on contemporary art.

The museum was designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The museum was built to house the art collection of Viktor and Marianne Langen. The collection consists of about 500 pieces of Japanese art, the bulk of which were created between the 12th and 19th centuries. Viktor Langen was an automotive engineer and held a number of patents. He regularly traveled to Japan, and that spurred his wife’s interest in Japanese art.

Initially, the couple’s collection was housed in Switzerland, but Marianne funded the construction of the Langen Foundation building to effect the relocation of her collection. She died shortly before construction of the building was finished. In addition to their collection of Japanese art, the couple also collected works from European artists, including Cezanne, Picasso, Warhol, Kandinsky and Bacon, among others.

Ando built the building as a sculptural work. The building includes a large glass and concrete rotunda, a concrete cube and a long glass and concrete veranda. The entire complex is designed to integrate into its surroundings and offers a peaceful venue that facilitates the contemplation of the museum’s collection.

Visitors to the complex enter a narrow doorway in a semicircular concrete and steel wall. Once through the doorway, the museum building, surrounded by a contemplative pool awaits. The glass envelope covers the interior concrete core.

The greater museum complex was rehabilitated following its initial construction as a NATO missile installation. The base was purchased by Karl-Heinrich Müller following its decommissioning in 1993. Müller did not want to erase the facility’s military history, but wanted to create a new purpose for the space. The finished design preserved military elements, including the bunkers, the observation tower, the halls and the landscaping that had disguised the military nature of the base. Other parts of the initial design, including razor-wire fencing, spotlights and bullet-proof glass were removed to open the space and make it more welcoming to the public. In addition to the Langen Foundation building, other new construction has also been completed on the base, and several sculptures now complement the grounds.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Andreas Lischka, via Flickr.com

Under-glass scanner could make all-glass phone

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Under-glass scanner could make all-glass phone

Under-glass scanner could make all-glass phone

Apple, Galaxy, Samsung and other mobile phone manufacturers have been promoting new all-glass versions of their products that are currently in development. One of the challenges they face is getting rid of the home button, which takes up valuable real estate on the front face of the phone.

New under-glass scanners may be the key to saying goodbye to the button. Instead of going for the home button, the phones may include an under-glass scanner than provides touch-based control of the phone. Synaptics announced an in-glass scanner earlier this year, that was designed to work with a glass surface at least .3 mm thick.

At that thickness, the device will work only with the scanner in a fixed location on the screen. Essentially, that limitation requires the scanner to be an analog for the home button. The button is gone, but the user must still return to the scanner’s fixed location to authenticate and issue secure controls.

Synaptic announced earlier this month a new evolution of the under-glass scanner. The latest version works with a glass thickness of .1mm, and that’s thin enough to be used in mobile phones and other hand-held devices. It’s also thin enough to enable the under-glass scanner to be incorporated into the lighted display area of the phone.

Future designs will eventually be able to authenticate the user from anywhere on the surface of the screen, creating the much-desired but not-yet-available edge-to-edge phone. The under-glass scanner that recognizes and authenticates the user from anywhere is still a few design generations away, but it’s definitely closer to the store shelves than it was earlier this year.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Jose Luis Agapito, via Flickr.com

Glass insulator may advance stainless steel use

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Glass insulator may advance stainless steel use

Glass insulator may advance stainless steel use

Some materials are undeniably attractive. Others are undeniably useful. Stainless steel is one of those materials that is both. But that doesn’t mean stainless steel is ideal for all circumstances. Stainless steel is extremely resistant to corrosion, but it’s also highly conductive, so insulating the contents of a stainless steel container is exceptionally important. That’s where ceramic glass insulation comes into play.

Being able to seal the stainless steel completely with ceramics is tricky, because heat is often used to attach the ceramic insulators to the stainless steel. Glass and stainless steel behave very differently in the presence of heat. Glass ceramics are brittle and stainless steel expands rapidly.

Researchers at the Sandia National Laboratory have developed a technique that can help bond glass ceramics and stainless steel together in a way that doesn’t put the ceramics at risk of shattering. By doping the ceramics with an oxidizing agent that reacts with alloys in the stainless steel at the point of ceramic contact, they can gradually build a strong bond between the two materials.

The team tested about two dozen different oxidants before determining the two that performed the best. Their goal was to allow the oxidant interfacing to expand at a rate that was similar to the stainless steel. By manipulating the reaction, the scientists could protect the glass during the bonding process, and limit or eliminate the possibility of shattering.

The team intends to continue research to determine whether the technique can be applied to bonding processes in other dissimilar materials. If they’re successful, their work could be used in energy, aerospace and electronics.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Chris D 2006, via Flickr.com

More cities curbing glass recycling

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More cities curbing glass recycling

More cities curbing glass recycling

Glass is a hard sell in the recycling world. Many cities are removing glass from the list of accepted materials in their curbside recycling programs. Without recycling, that leaves a limited number of options for discarded container glass. In some respects, Coeur d’Alene, ID is ahead of the curve on this issue. They’ve landfilled glass directly for nearly a decade.

North Idaho doesn’t have any glass recycling facilities, and shipping Coeur d’Alene’s containers elsewhere for recycling is too expensive. According to city officials, the closest recycling facilities are in Oregon or across the border in Canada. As a compromise, the city’s new waste hauler plans to crush the container glass it collects and use it as landfill cover. Curbside collection of glass is still off the table, but the waste hauler will place collection containers around the city where residents can deposit their containers.

Once the glass is crushed, it will be used as a daily cover for the city’s landfill, to cut down on odors, trap gases from decay, and discourage trash-scattering by the wind, rodents and birds. Some of the crushed glass could also be recycled, if the company can find a buyer and develop a transportation strategy. Crushed glass, known as cullet, could also make its way into paving materials as a replacement for potash.

A small, members-only recycling company in Coeur d’Alene takes containers and accepts donations from members. The company sorts and crushes the glass, and returns it to members, who use it in a variety of ways, including landscaping, artwork and construction. Currently, that group is limited by the size of their facility, and say that if they had more space, they could accept more of the city’s waste glass.

Spokane, WA is also among the growing number of US cities that is landfilling glass. The city, which switched to single-stream recycling in 2012, contracts with Waste Management to provide recycling services. The company says it can’t find enough interested buyers in waste glass to make a profit on the material.

In the past, Spokane has used pulverized glass in road construction, but the amount needed for those projects is far less than the city collects. So for now, the glass will be pulverized and used as landfill cover, while the city continues to look for more environmentally responsible outlets for container glass.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: H. Kopp, via Flickr.com