Glass is ubiquitous, from high-tech goods in the fields of optics, telecommunications, chemistry and medicine to day-to-day objects these kinds of as bottles and home windows. On the other hand, shaping glass is largely dependent on procedures these kinds of as melting, grinding or etching. These procedures are decades aged, technologically demanding, power-intense and severely constrained in terms of the styles that can be recognized. For the very first time, a team led by Prof. Dr. Bastian E. Rapp from the Laboratory of Course of action Know-how at the Section of Microsystems Engineering at the University of Freiburg, in collaboration with the Freiburg-dependent start out-up Glassomer, has developed a procedure that can make it feasible to type glass conveniently, immediately and in just about any shape applying injection molding. The researchers offered their final results in the journal Science.
“For decades, glass has often been the second choice when it arrives to supplies in manufacturing procedures mainly because its development is way too difficult, power-intense and unsuitable for creating high-resolution constructions,” describes Rapp. “Polymers, on the other hand, have allow all of this, but their actual physical, optical, chemical and thermal homes are inferior to glass. As a outcome, we have merged polymer and glass processing. Our procedure will allow us to immediately and expense-correctly swap the two mass-generated goods and elaborate polymer constructions and elements with glass.”
Injection molding is the most significant procedure in the plastics marketplace and enables the quick and expense-helpful manufacturing of elements in so-named high-throughput in just about any shape and size. Transparent glass could not be molded in this procedure until now. With the recently developed Glassomer injection molding know-how from a unique granulate designed in-dwelling, it is now feasible to also mildew glass in high throughput at just one hundred thirty °C. The injection-molded elements from the 3D printer are then converted into glass in a warmth procedure procedure: The outcome is pure quartz glass. This procedure demands fewer power than conventional glass melting, resulting in power performance. The fashioned glass elements have a high surface quality, so that publish-procedure actions these kinds of as sharpening are not needed.
The novel types manufactured feasible by Glassomer’s glass injection molding know-how have a extensive array of programs from info know-how, optics and solar know-how to a so-named lab-on-a-chip and medical know-how. “We see great potential specially for small high-tech glass elements with difficult geometries. In addition to transparency, the extremely very low coefficient of enlargement of quartz glass also can make the know-how appealing. Sensors and optics work reliably at any temperature if the vital elements are manufactured of glass,” describes Dr. Frederik Kotz, group leader at the Laboratory of Course of action Know-how and Main Scientific Officer (CSO) at Glassomer. “We have also been equipped to present that micro-optical glass coatings can raise the performance of solar cells. This know-how can now be employed to make expense-helpful high-tech coatings with high thermal stability. There are a range of industrial options for it.”
The team all around Frederik Kotz and Markus Mader, a doctoral university student at the Laboratory of Course of action Know-how, solved formerly existing challenges in the injection molding of glass these kinds of as porosity and particle abrasion. In addition, vital procedure actions in the new strategy were being designed to use h2o as the foundation substance, producing the know-how far more environmentally pleasant and sustainable.
Bastian Rapp is executive director of the Freiburg Resources Investigation Centre FMF and a member of the Cluster of Excellence Dwelling, Adaptive and Electricity-autonomous Resources Programs (livMatS) at the University of Freiburg, which develops novel, bio-impressed substance techniques. Rapp is also co-founder and Main Complex Officer (CTO) of Glassomer GmbH, which develops high-resolution 3D printing systems for glass. His investigate has gained him a Consolidator Grant from the European Investigation Council (ERC), amid other awards.
Video: https://videoportal.uni-freiburg.de/movie/Glass-like-plastic-processing-Bastian-Rapp/c438da06a7f18e914912eab03cd4bd56
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