Energy saving and environmental protection, what are the uses of waste glass?

  • news-img

While the total amount of the world economy is growing, the contradiction between resource environment and economic and social development is becoming more and more prominent. Environmental pollution has become a major international problem. As a glass industry, what can we contribute to global environmental protection?

The waste glass is collected, sorted, and processed, and used as the raw material for glass production, which has become the main way for the recycling of waste glass. Waste glass can be used in the production of glass products with low requirements for chemical composition, color and impurities, such as colored bottle glass, glass insulators, hollow glass bricks, channel glass, patterned glass and colored glass balls. The mixing amount of waste glass in these products is generally more than 30wt%, and the mixing amount of waste glass in green bottle and can products can reach more than 80wt%.

Uses of waste glass:
1. Coating materials: use waste glass and waste tires to be crushed into fine powder, and mixed into the paint in a certain proportion, which can replace the silica and other materials in the paint.
2. Raw materials of glass-ceramics: glass-ceramics have hard texture, high mechanical strength, good chemical and thermal stability. However, the production cost of traditional raw materials commonly used in glass-ceramics is relatively high. In foreign countries, waste glass from the float process and fly ash from power plants are used to replace traditional glass-ceramic raw materials to produce glass-ceramics successfully.
3. Glass asphalt: use waste glass as a filler for asphalt roads. It can mix glass, stones, and ceramics without color sorting. Compared with other materials, using glass as a filler for asphalt roads has several advantages: improving the anti-skid performance of the pavement; resistance to abrasion; improving the reflection of the pavement and enhancing the visual effect at night.
4. Glass mosaic: The method of using waste glass to quickly fire glass mosaic, which is characterized by using waste glass as the main raw material, using a new forming binder (aqueous solution of glue), inorganic colorants and a complete set of corresponding sintering processes. The molding pressure is 150-450 kg/cm2, and the minimum firing temperature is 650-800℃. It is fired in a continuous tunnel electric kiln. No foam inhibitor is needed; due to the excellent performance of the binder, the amount is small, and it can be fired quickly. As a result, the product has various colors, no bubbles, strong visual perception and excellent texture.
5. Artificial marble: Artificial marble is made of waste glass, fly ash, sand and gravel as aggregates, cement is used as a binder, and the surface layer and the base layer are used for secondary grouting for natural curing. It not only has a bright surface and bright color, but also has good physical and mechanical properties, easy processing and good decorative effects. It has the characteristics of wide raw material sources, simple equipment and technology, low cost, and low investment.
6. Glass tiles: use waste glass, ceramic waste and clay as the main raw materials, and fire at 1100°C. Waste glass can produce glass phase in the ceramic tile early, which is beneficial to sintering and lowers the firing temperature. This glass tile is widely used in the paving of urban squares and urban roads. It can not only prevent rainwater from collecting and keep traffic flowing, but also beautify the environment and turn waste into treasure.
7. Ceramic glaze additives: In ceramic glaze, the use of waste glass to replace expensive frit and other chemical raw materials can not only reduce the firing temperature of the glaze, reduce the cost of the product, but also improve the quality of the product. Using colored waste glass to make glaze can also reduce or even eliminate the need to add colorants, so that the amount of colored metal oxides is reduced, and the cost of the glaze is further reduced.
8. Production of thermal insulation and sound insulation materials: waste glass can be used to produce thermal insulation and sound insulation materials such as foam glass and glass wool.


Post time: Jan-23-2021