Fabrication of Ultra-Clear Glass Using Domestic Raw Materials
摘要
At this moment, Vietnamese glass market is lacking of domestic manufacturers with the ability to process low-iron raw materials which are input materials for ultra-clear glasses manufacturing. Therefore, the authors find the need for research on iron oxide content’s reduction of raw materials to facilitate the fabrication of ultra-clear glass. This article proposes the method of acid leaching applied to silica sand, utilizing oxalic acid and sulfuric acid for iron oxide content’s reduction. Under the optimal conditions found in Vegliò’s research [9] and reaction time reached up to 24 h, the silica sand after acid leaching has 0,01% iron oxide content. This article then presents the results of ultra-clear glass fabrication at the laboratory scale, using silica sand after treatment. Among the product samples, the best ones in term of performance have impressive technical specifications with light transmittance reaches 91.72%, solar direct transmittance reaches 91.21%. Ultra-clear glasses fabricated by method proposed by this research showed better light transmittance and solar direct transmittance than imported products. Thus, it can be argued that silica sand in Vietnam is of high quality category, and ultra-clear glass fabricated using processed Vietnamese silica sand potentially has higher quality than other imported products.