Step-by-Step Guide to Industrial Glass
In this video, you will see the process of making glass. Glass is used in many different ways, from the glasses you use for drinking in your kitchen, to industrial glass such as marbles in paint cans that mix paint.
A surprising fact about glass is that it is not a true solid. It’s more of a frozen liquid. Sand, limestone, and ash are ground and mixed into “batch”, and mixed with broken pieces of glass called “cullet”. Cullet helps lower the temperature of the raw materials.
All of these materials are then heated until they melt together. This liquid glass is then cooled somewhat and poured into molds. A process called “annealing” follows. The glass is slowly cooled. If it is cooled too quickly it becomes brittle and less sturdy. Annealing ensures that the final product is strong and stable.
Different glass is used for different fields. As mentioned above, there are the glasses you use every day for drinking. There is glass for your windows, glass instruments used in laboratories, glass for light bulbs, and many more. With each different type of glass, the manufacturing process is changed somewhat. But at the end of the day, you have a supercooled liquid with endless uses.
