{"id":4186,"date":"2016-02-25T12:01:48","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T10:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.glastory.net\/?p=4186"},"modified":"2022-11-09T16:44:40","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T14:44:40","slug":"opportunities-for-thin-glass-tempering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glastory.net\/de\/opportunities-for-thin-glass-tempering\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing the opportunities for real in thin glass tempering"},"content":{"rendered":"

The glass industry globally is buzzing with talk about the opportunities of thin glass. And the advantages seem perfectly clear. All the players in the value chain are demanding exactly what thin glass excels at providing: lighter, cheaper, and ultimately higher-quality glass that enable more efficient and sustainable solutions for end customers. So why hasn\u2019t thin glass already caught on like wildfire?<\/em><\/p>\n

With all the growth drivers pushing for thin glass, it is amazing that there are still a limited number of solutions and actual real-life cases where very thin heat-treated glass is used.<\/p>\n

Thin glass reduces the costs of freight, installation and raw materials, and even helps lower transportation emissions. Thin glass efficiency and low weight are ideal for solar, architecture and automotive applications. Plus, thin glass provides a range of new products for glass processors, including vacuum insulated glazing (VIG), fire-resistant glass (FRG) and cold-bent facades for more intriguing, radical forms of architecture.<\/p>\n

The thinnest commonly available heat-treated glass today is 3 mm, although the market is looking towards even thinner solutions of around 2 mm. Yet a major hurdle is that only about 12% of the tempering lines available in Europe today can provide such thin heat-treated glass. So, there is an overall lack of capacity to produce such thin glass. Why?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The cost of thin raw glass<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Float glass manufacturing, which is at the start of the glass value chain, has been tuned to produce tons of end product. Therefore, the float glass process has been designed to produce thicknesses between 4 mm and 19 mm. Existing float glass plants are able to handle thinner glass, even down to 2 mm, but then the output in tons is significantly reduced.<\/p>\n

This poses the first obstacle for the development of the thin glass business. And currently, the price of the thin float glass is more expensive than 4 mm glass, for example, thereby slowing down the development especially of high-volume applications.<\/p>\n

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