How is glass made (Fact behind Myth)
Glass is a common material in most households.
Everybody loves decorating their house with beautiful glassware along with showpieces.
Moreover, big monuments, buildings, and more use this reflective and beautiful material to decorate and create masterpieces.
So, how does this material come into existence?
How is glass made?
What is glass made of?
First, we have to look at what glass is exactly made of. Glass is a type of liquid sand.
Even though different types of glass will have a slightly different make-up, generally, glass is a mixture of sand, other kinds of recycled glass, calcium carbonara, sodium carbonate, and lastly a whole lot of heat.
We need to heat sand to an extremely high temperature of 3090 degrees F so that it melts.
The sand goes through a complete transformation as it reaches a melting point. The basic structure of the substance changes.
It becomes amorphous, which is a state of not quite liquid but also not quite solid.
This makes for When sand reaches its melting point it undergoes a complete transformation.
The structure changes as it becomes amorphous—not quite a liquid and not quite a solid. This creates a very unique moldable material with which glass is eventually made.
What is the process of making glass?
The process of making glass is pretty simple and straightforward. Normally, glass is made in a commercial glass plant.
Here, sand is mixed with old and recycled glass. Other substances like sodium carbonate and calcium carbonate are also added to the mixture.
Following the making of the mixture, all the substances are heated in a large furnace.
At very high temperatures, these substances meld into a liquid form. Once it reaches that state, it is poured into different molds to shape.
Many times it is also poured on a flat surface to make sheets of glass, which are commonly used in the construction of large buildings.
Step by step process
From selecting the right type and ratios of ingredients for glass to assimilating them all scientifically to produce glass as we know it, here we answer the question of how is glass made through a step-by-step process:
1. Melting and Refining
To make clear glass, first, we must have the right set of raw materials required to make the same. The materials required are:
a. Silica sand (SiO2)
b. Sodium oxide (Na2O) from soda ash
c. Calcium oxide (CaO) from limestone/dolomite
d. Dolomite (MgO)
Feldspar (Al2O3)
All the ingredients are mixed in the right ratios and then the entire batch has shifted to a furnace. It is heated to 1500 degrees Celsius.
To alter the color of the glass, certain metal oxides are also mixed in the batch.
2. Float bath
After the material from the furnace has turned molten, it flows into the float bath which is made of a mirror-like surface made from molten tin.
The material entering the bath is about 1500 degrees Celsius which turns to 650 degrees Celsius when it leaves the bath.
By this time, the shape of the mass is like a solid ribbon.
3. Coating for reflective glass
Now if one is making reflective glass surfaces, there is an essential additional step.
As it helps in keeping indoors cooler, there needs to be a layer of coating on it.
Either a hard coat or soft coat is applied on the surfaces of the cooled ribbon at high temperatures.
4. Annealing
Next, we have to remove the internal stresses build inside the glass to ensure a smooth finish.
This process is called annealing.
It allows the glass ribbon to pass through a layer which eliminates any stresses on the glass surface and gradually cools it to give it its final hardened form.
This step helps in making the process of shaping and cutting the glass easier.
5. Inspecting
Due to advancements in technology, we can use acute observation and inspection to check the glass.
More than 100 million inspections can be made throughout the glass manufacturing procedure to identify air bubbles, stresses, or grains of sand that refuse to melt.
This is a crucial step in quality-proofing the final form of glass.
6. Cutting to order
At last, the glass ribbon is cut into the shapes required by using diamond steels to trim it according to the requirements.
These processes and exact ingredients, along with their ratios vary according to the type of glass being produced.
For example, other chemicals are added to make color glass. Or boron oxide is added to make an oven-proof glass.
