Chemical Tempering of Soda Lime Silicate Glass by Electric Field Assisted Techniques

Chemical strengtheningChemical strengthening of glassGlass is a processProcess that toughens the surface of glassGlass by exchange of alkali ions at temperaturesTemperature below the glassGlass transition temperatureTemperature where the replacement of small alkali ions in the glassGlass with larger potassium ions from the molten saltMolten salt occurs which results in creation of a thin layer of high compression stress on the surface of glassGlass and a layer of a tension in the center. Effective chemical strengtheningChemical strengthening of glassGlass has been restricted by diverse technological limitations such as glassGlass composition, salts impurities, temperatureTemperature, and time. Therefore, in this manuscript, the shortcomings of the current state of the art technologiesTechnology have analyzed, and an electric field assisted glassGlass strengthening alternative has been presented and tested. EF-IEElectric field assisted ion exchange (EF-IE) shortens the processing time drastically and improves the efficiency forming an exchanged layer as deep as and in some cases, more than the conventional strengthening processProcess and enhances the glassGlass strength and makes the glassGlass more failure resistant in some cases. Ion exchange in different liquid phase compositions and its factors on the final strength of SLSSoda lime silicate glass (SLS) glassesGlass were also investigated. The obtained values from the characterizationCharacterization were compared to results obtained from experiments with the current state of the art processProcess and in some cases showed a significant increase in strength of the glassGlass. Possible reasons for the differences are also discussed.