Mass-production glasses

Mass-production glasses, such as window and container glasses, which are soda-lime-silicate glasses. Besides the application-dependant properties such as transparency, chemical resistance, and mechanical strength, the main concern is cost. 

Glass can be machined to a very limited extend only. Treatment of glass for the production of tubes is delicate and requires lots of special tools. The shape of the vacuum envelope can t be simply changed. Glass is more suitable for mass production of simple shaped goods. 

Optical fibers which were developed primarily for the communication industry have been successfully implemented into other disciplines such as chemistry, physics, and biomedicine. Mass production of high-quality fibers by a variety of manufacturers has rendered themrelatively inexpensive. The use of optical fibers is rapidly increasing because of their size, cost, and easy mode ofoperation.(62) Table 7.1 shows properties of some commercially available optical fibers. Originally, optical fibers were made of glass but more recently they have become available as organic polymers or metal halides. They are flexible, stable, and resistant to many chemicals. Furthermore, optical fibers can improve safety by allowing the remote analysis of potentially harmful chemicals. A detailed review of the development of optical fibers has been previously published/63 ... 

Zoltek anticipates that a price of 12/kg could involve the use of carbon fibres in mass production. This is not unrealistic and the replacement of glass fibres for highly-loaded body components is foreseen. Today, 14/kg appears to be a sustainable prospect and is leading to new developments. 

MEMS-like systems are frequently sealed by anodic bonding of Pyrex glass covers [20, 73, 86], or melting of low melting-point glass frits [71], which may well be suitable for future mass production of small devices. Further details will not be discussed here. 

Vitreous silica is high purity Si02 glass that can withstand service temperatures above 1,000°C. As a metastable phase of silica, vitreous silica can be readily obtained in nature and synthetically. Silica glass can be produced in a pure and stable form, displaying useful properties, but is rigid and difficult to shape even at 2,000°C. Hence, it is not accessible to mass production plastic-forming methods. However, techniques have been developed to produce vitreous silica in various shapes and sizes [36-39],... 

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