LionGlass: Green Option for Durable Building Material with 50% Less Carbon Emissions

The recently created LionGlass is a strong, eco-friendly building material with a reduction in carbon emissions of 50%.

New Green Glass Option, LionGlass

A minimum of 86M tons of carbon dioxide are emitted annually from the production of glass globally. However, Pennsylvania State researchers have created a brand-new glass dubbed LionGlass that has the potential to cut this carbon emission by 50%. In addition to requiring significantly less energy to produce than traditional soda-lime-silicate glass, this novel glass also has higher damage resistance.

The first step in bringing LionGlass to market was recently made by the researchers who made this discovery by filing a patent application.

John Mauro wants to make the glass industry long-term sustainable. The project's lead researcher is Mauro, a Dorothy Pate Enright Professor at Penn State.

According to Mauro, LionGlass eliminates the need for batch materials that include carbon and greatly decreases the glass's melting temperature.

The typical glass used in everyday products like windows and glass dinnerware is soda lime silicate, which is created by melting three different materials: soda ash, quartz sand, and limestone. Both soda ash and limestone, which are made of the carbonates sodium and calcium, melt when heated, releasing carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas that traps heat.

According to Mauro, the melting temperatures for LionGlass are reduced by about 300 to 400 degrees Celsius, which results in energy savings of about 30% when compared to traditional soda lime glass.

More Durable Than Conventional Glass

In addition to being more environmentally friendly, LionGlass is also significantly more durable than regular glass. The newly developed glass, which bears the name of Penn State's Nittany Lion mascot, has a noticeably higher break resistance than standard glass, which shocked the researchers.

When compared to ordinary soda lime glass, which cracks under a load of roughly 0.1 kg force, LionGlass is at least 10 times more resistant to cracking. Because they exceeded the maximum load permitted by the indentation apparatus, the researchers noted that the limits of LionGlass have not yet been discovered.

One of the most crucial characteristics to test for in glass, according to Mauro, is crack resistance because that is how the substance eventually breaks down. Glass produces surface-level microcracks over time, which turn into weak spots. Glass breaks because of vulnerabilities brought on by pre-existing microcracks. He continued that glass that is resistant to the development of microcracks in the first place is very valuable.

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Possibilities of Thickness and Weight

Mauro is hopeful that LionGlass' increased strength would allow for lighter-weight items to be made from it. LionGlass might be considerably thinner because it is 10 times more resistant to damage than conventional glass.

With less thickness, Mauro hopes to maintain the same level of resistance to damage. It would be more beneficial for the environment if LionGlass were lighter because less energy and raw materials would be consumed in its production. It's a win-win situation for everyone because it minimizes the resources needed to transport the glass even further downstream.

Mauro points out that the research group is still assessing LionGlass's potential. The LionGlass family has many compositions, each with its unique features and prospective applications, as they have submitted a patent application for the complete family of glass.

To better understand how it responds, they are currently subjecting different LionGlass formulations to a variety of chemical conditions. The outcomes will aid the team in better understanding the potential applications of LionGlass on a global scale.