In glass manufacturing process, the transparent hard body is created by the application of vast amounts of heat to sand or quartz. Glass is an amorphous inorganic, homogeneous transparent or translucent material which can be molded into any shape.
Based on the type of glass, its raw materials are collected and different compositions are sent to the manufacturing process. Following are the raw materials for different types of glass.
A collection of Raw Materials for Glass Manufacturing Process:
Types of Glass | Raw Materials for Glass Manufacturing Process |
| Soda lime glass | Chalk soda ash (Na₂CO₃) and clean fresh sand |
| Potash lime glass | Chalk, potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃) and clean fresh sand |
| Potash lead glass | Litharge (lead monoxide PbO) or lead sesquioxide (Pb₃ O₄), Potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃) or pure sand |
| Common glass | Chalk, salt cake (Na₂SO₄), coke, ordinary sand. |
Preparation of Batch in Glass Manufacturing Process:
Batch preparation is one of the first phases of the manufacturing process of glass, which involves weighing fine ground raw materials. This process includes formers, fluxes, stabilizers and sometimes colorants according to recipe required for the final product of the glass. The fine raw materials are subsequently mixed with each other to achieve a homogenous composition and then they are transferred into the melting furnace.
Melting in the Furnace:
Melting of raw materials at high temperature to form a molten glass is the central phase in the manufacturing of glass. There are numerous ways to melt glass depending on the desired product, its end use, the prevailing commercial factors and the scale of operation.
Fabrication of Glass into Desired Forms:
Fabrication of glass techniques include cutting, grinding, laminating, and drilling. Glass fabrication requires polishing, bending, finishing and edging in most of the cases. Precision and quality are of the utmost importance in fabrication processes. So that Computer Numerical Control machines are used. Locations that offer the above combined with low expenses are regularly targeted for investment and there are numerous new manufacturing operations in Mazatlan, Mexico and similar manufacturing zones.
Annealing in Glass Manufacturing Process:
It is a process of slowly cooling hot glass objects after it was formed. It is the process to relieve residual internal stresses introduced during manufacture.
In glass manufacturing process, quality is checked before packaging process. The final glass product is rejected if the bubble or sand grain that refuses to melt. Nowadays inspections are done automatically to detect the defects in the glass which are not seen through the naked eye.
After all the glass manufacturing process, manufactured glass can be stored as per the required shape & size and then sent it to the retail outlet store.