Ultra-light Colorless and Green Glass Foam Produced by Microwave Radiation

Lucian Paunescu (Daily Sourcing & Research SRL Bucharest)
Sorin Mircea Axinte (Daily Sourcing & Research SRL Bucharest + Department of Applied Chemistry and Materials Science, University "Politehnica" of Bucharest, Romania)
Felicia Cosmulescu (Cosfel Actual SRL Bucharest, Romania)
Marius Florin Dragoescu (Department of Applied Chemistry and Materials Science, University "Politehnica" of Bucharest, Romania)
Bogdan Valentin Paunescu (Consitrans SA Bucharest, Romania)

Journal La Multiapp
Vol. 2 No. 1 (2021): Journal La Multiapp

Abstract According to the research objective that was the basis of the paper, an ultra-light glass foam with an apparent density of 0.14 g/cm3 was experimentally made from 98.9% post-consumer glass bottle and 1% CaCO3 as a foaming agent by sintering/foaming at 823 ºC in microwave field with a very low specific energy consumption (0.70 kWh/kg). A very advanced mechanical processing of glass waste (below 32 μm) and a very fine granulation (below 6.3 μm) of CaCO3 were the solutions adopted to obtain this high-performance product. The originality of the work is the use of the unconventional technique of predominantly direct microwave heating with a very high energy efficiency, applied by authors in recent years and presented in several previous papers.