Novel C-Bond coating to enable light weighting of glass products

This project will adapt a new coating technology to enhance surface protection of glass to increase strength

and enabling light-weighting of flat and container glass products. UK glass production is an energy intensive

industry consuming ~9TWh/yr, 70% of this energy is used to melt the glass in the furnace. Reducing the weight

of glass products will reduce the energy required and CO2 produced during manufacture. Basic engineering

formula demonstrate a direct correlation between glass strength and wall thickness; therefore increasing glass

strength will enable product thickness to be reduced leading to associated weight savings. Being a brittle

material, surface defects with dimensions in the order of microns can lead to catastrophic glass failure. Glass

strength will be maximised through aligning coating formulation to surface flaws, maximising crack filling &

pinning potential, minimising driving force for crack propagation. In demonstrating that the coating has the

potential to strengthen glass and reduce weight of glass products by 10-15%, the project will show how the

technology to reduce energy consumption by >1TWh and CO2 emissions by 250kT.