The Technical And Chemical Explanation Of Glass

Glass and glassware products are very prominent in our civilization. In history also, glass and glassware products are produced. In today’s technology, glass is used at high tech products also. In this article, we will explain the technical explanation of glass below.

What Is Glass?

Actually, we can say that glass is a state of a material under certain circumstances at solidification. If we want to obtain glassy state from a material, we must not allow to crystalline structure occur on that material. So, for glassy state, we need to provide non-crystalline structure for that material. Obtaining non-crystalline structure is about to solidification speed. At low solidification speed, crystallization occurs in most materials. For non-crystalline state for a material, high speed solidification must be established.

Commercial Glass As A Material

Also there is a ‘glass’ term for a specific material that all of us know. That commercial glass material is used in glass bottles, windows etc. The main constituent of glass is ‘silica’. As we stated at other article about it, silica is obtained from ‘quartz’ and quartz is obtained from sandstone and silica sand. In engineering, this glass is called as ‘silica glass’.

Properties Of Silica Glass Material

Glass is very thermal resistant material and thermal expansion of most glass types are very low. Because of that, glass material can be used in high temperature applications. Thermal shock phenomenon is not a prominent thing for glasses.

As we stated above, silica is main constituent in glass. But slight amount of oxides also added into glass structure. That SiO2 constituent provides much more control over glass solidification, and with this slow solidification rates, glass can be shaped easily. It prevents the occurence of crystalline structure for glass material. Also oxides of silica called as ‘glass fromer’ material in market.

Reasons To Add SiO2 Into Glass

• SiO2 acts as flux.
• Retarder. SiO2 retards devitrification upon crystalization of glass.
• SiO2 reduces that thermal expansion characteristics of glass material.
• SiO2 gives resistance for chemical attack of acids etc. to glass.
• Gives fluidity to glass at molten state.

This can be the good summary for chemical structure and explanation of glass. Do not forget to leave your comments and questions about ‘glass’ below!