Glass Manufacture NZIC（玻璃制造NZIC）.pdfVIP

GLASS MANUFACTURE Glass has been manufactured in New Zealand for over one hundred years, and is a common part of our daily lives. It is used commonly in windows, bottles, jars and domestic glassware, as well as as a material for artwork, such as stained glass. It is manufactured from cheap and abundant raw materials, and is readily recycled. Glass is produced in a two step process, and then shaped to make it suitable for a variety of applications. Step 1 - Batch mixing The mixture of ingredients to make up the glass (silica, Na CO , CaCO and recycled 2 3 3 glass, together with small quantities of various other minor ingredients) are mixed in a rotary mixer to ensure an even mix of ingredients and fed into the furnace. Step 2 - Batch melting o The mixture is heated to 1500-1550 C, where the ingredients melt, various chemical reactions take place and CO and SO are evolved. 2 3 Shaping plate glass o The molten glass is cooled to 1000 C in a drawing canal, and then drawn up a tower (the drawing tower) where it is pressed into the desired width and thickness, and cools to o 280 C. Individual plates of glass are snapped off at the top of the tower and further cooled before being put into storage ready for sale. Molding glass containers Here molten glass is channeled off in forehearths (heated channels) where it is slowly o cooled to tempertaures of 1100 - 1150 C to increase its viscosity. Precisely weighed slugs of glass are cut off, molded with compressed air, coole