LionGlass Glass Cuts Carbon Footprint by Nearly Half
A new type of glass promises to cut carbon footprints in half. LionGlass requires significantly less energy to produce and is much more damage resistant than standard soda–lime–silica glass. The Penn State University research team recently filed a patent application as a first step toward bringing the product to market.
“Our goal is to make glass manufacturing sustainable for the long term,” said Professor John Mauro the lead researcher. “LionGlass eliminates the use of carbon-containing batch materials and significantly lowers the melting temperature of glass.
With LionGlass, the melting temperatures are lowered by about 300 to 400°C," Prof. Mauro explained, "which leads to a roughly 30% reduction in energy consumption compared to conventional soda lime glass."
It is also much stronger than conventional glass: “We kept increasing the weight on LionGlass until we reached the maximum load the equipment will allow,” said Nick Clark, a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Mauro’s lab. “It simply wouldn’t crack.”
The improved strength of LionGlass means the products created from it can be lighter weight. Since LionGlass is 10 times more damage resistant than current glass, it could be significantly thinner.
“We should be able to reduce the thickness and still get the same level of damage resistance,” Prof. Mauro said. “If we have a lighter-weight product, that is even better for the environment, because we use less raw materials and need less energy to produce it. Even downstream, for transportation, that reduces the energy required to transport the glass, it's a winning situation.”
