image: Nicholas Clark, a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State and one of the inventors of LionGlass, molds a piece of glass after removing it from a forge in the team's research lab. LionGlass is an entirely new type of glass that offers the first alternative to soda lime silicate glass, which has been used for thousands of years for everything from windows to bottles to microscope slides.
Credit: Michael Owen / Penn State
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — LionGlass, a new family of glass engineered by researchers at Penn State, has secured its first corporate partner, a move toward bringing the ecofriendly alternative to standard soda lime silicate glass to market.
Bormioli Luigi, an Italian glassmaker that specializes in producing high-end packaging for fragrance, cosmetics and tableware, is the first company to enter an official partnership with Penn State to perform research and development with the goal of scaling up, manufacturing and ultimately commercializing LionGlass.
“This is an enormous opportunity to work with this material and create a more sustainable glass with far less carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and energy consumption than standard glass,” said Elisa Biavardi, the chemical laboratory manager for Bormioli Luigi. “I see it also as an opportunity to learn from one another as we explore the possibilities for this major innovation in glassmaking.”
The partnership will focus on scaling up LionGlass to create bottles for luxury beauty products like cosmetics and perfume. By focusing on a smaller, high-end market, the company can fine tune the glass and determine the feasibility of scaling it up further for other uses, Biavardi explained.
LionGlass is an entirely new type of glass that offers the first alternative to soda lime silicate glass, which has been used for thousands of years for everything from windows to bottles to microscope slides. Soda lime silicate glass is made by melting quartz sand with carbon-based ingredients — soda ash and limestone — at high melting temperatures of about 1,450 degrees Celsius (C). The high energy requirements for melting glass account for 70% to 80% of its carbon footprint. The remaining 20% to 30% comes from decomposition of its carbonate batch materials, which release CO2 into the atmosphere.
Worldwide, glass manufacturing produces over 86 million tons of carbon dioxide every year. LionGlass, which eliminates the use of carbonate batch materials and has a melting temperature roughly 400 C lower than other everyday glass products, has the potential to cut the carbon footprint of glass manufacturing in half, explained John Mauro, the Dorothy Pate Enright Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State and co-inventor of LionGlass.
He added that LionGlass also offers improved damage resistance compared to soda lime silicate glass. It’s roughly 10 times more crack-resistant, which could enable lightweighting of glass products, further reducing the carbon footprint of glass production by lowering the carbon emissions used to transport the glass.
Last year, Penn State filed a patent application for the composition of the first generation of LionGlass, which holds the potential to usher in a new era of sustainable glass manufacturing, Mauro said. The university recently filed a second provisional patent application for the next generation of LionGlass with further improved properties.
“We’re thrilled to have this close partnership with Bormioli to realize the full potential of LionGlass to reshape the industry,” Mauro said. “Bormioli is building upon a long history of innovation in glass manufacturing by moving towards methods that are more environmentally sustainable. We have very close alignment of our goals and look forward to partnering with them to bridge the gap towards commercialization.”
Until now, LionGlass has been made in a lab setting using a crucible, a small, pot-shaped container used to melt glass at high furnace temperatures. To produce LionGlass at an industrial scale, it will need to be melted in large batches inside massive furnaces and formed using molds, something that has not yet been tested with the new family of glass. The first year of the partnership will be dedicated in part to testing the feasibility of using the molding technique with LionGlass in Bormioli’s existing manufacturing infrastructure.
“This all started as just an idea in our lab, and now we’re partnering with companies to bring it out into the world,” said Nicholas Clark, a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State and one of the inventors of LionGlass. “We’re translating what we're learning from the laboratory-scale, crucible melting that we're doing here at Penn State to a much larger scale of continuous glass production that's being done at Bormioli. It’s exciting for our work to be this close to a major industrial innovation.”
Bormioli Luigi is a family-owned company based in Parma, Italy, since 1946. It is one of the world's leading glass manufacturers and a recognized pioneer in the use of electric furnaces: the Parma plant has been using electric furnaces since 1986, and today the Bormioli Luigi Group uses electricity for 65% of its production and is moving toward full green energy. This positioning illustrates a long-standing strategy of constant optimization, Biavardi said.
“This partnership is a testament to the ability of Penn State’s research enterprise to address needs within the global marketplace,” said Andrew Read, senior vice president for research, Penn State. “By marrying the creative spirit of discovery and innovation that Penn State is known for with the product development expertise of a highly respected corporate partner, we can create a consumer product that is not only superior in durability but also lowers carbon emissions to help protect our planet from the effects of climate change. We are proud to partner with Bormioli and look forward to breaking new ground through this unique collaboration.”