Reviewing and summarizing history from past experiences allows us to recognize progress and anticipate the future. The glass container industry faces unprecedented opportunities for development as well as unprecedented challenges. The rational use of glass bottle, energy conservation, environmental protection, and quality are the themes for future research and development.
Glass bottle manufacturing history's first major leap:
The "two mixers" theory in the glass manufacturing process marked the first major leap in the production and manufacturing of modern glass container bottles.
The origin of the "two mixers" is due to an international conference held in the early 1950s when an engineer put forth the famous two mixer argument.
In the glass manufacturing process, there are two mixing processes. First is solid mixing in the raw material process, which accounts for 70% of importance, and second is the liquid mixture in the melting process, which accounts for 30% of importance. Because the glass liquid still remains extremely viscous at the high-temperature state, unlike what people imagine about easy uniformity, whereas the powder material is relatively easy to mix uniformly at ambient temperature.
The theory of two mixers has inspired glass container bottles manufacturers and engineers worldwide. As the mechanical and electrical technologies had already reached a higher level during the 1950s, the combination of mechanical electricity manufacturing lines emerged and were swiftly promoted worldwide.
The international conference sparked the use of an innovative concept and brought advancement to glass manufacturing worldwide, creating a milestone in the history of the international glass industry's development.
Preceding one's goals, one must have adequate knowledge and good concepts. The lag of awareness and ideas is the source of backward technologies and products.
Currently, the majority of glass enterprises do not have sufficient control over raw materials such as composition, granularity, and moisture content but are restricted by suppliers, which will hinder them from producing high-quality glass bottle products.
Simultaneously, there is a lack of technological research and measures on process details:
The design and manufacture of glass kilns remain in the individualistic phase of heroism. "Four new technologies" such as kiln structure optimization design, material application, insulation, bubbling, electric melting, endoscopy monitoring, emission treatment, heat recovery, and automation control have not been fully utilized.
Standardization work is also very weak, with national standards, industry standards, enterprise standards, norms falling behind the times. Technological progress standards must come first; otherwise, outdated standards will become a bottleneck for development.
Glass bottle enterprises and their products will eventually be checked by the market's quality and societal environment in the end.
Particle size of glass raw materials: 60~80 mesh>85%, especially mineral raw materials;
Composition of glass raw materials: stable, especially the control of feldspar and silica minerals;
Moisture content of glass raw materials:<8%~10%, with a focus on silica sand and feldspar;
Accuracy of weighing glass raw materials: 1%~1/3000;
Feeding Order: silica sand + pure alkali + feldspar + auxiliary materials and small materials;
Mixing Time: 3~5 minutes;
Mixing Homogeneity: ≥96%~98% ;
Moisture content of blended materials: 5%~7%;
Crushed Glass: Granularity ≤50mm;
Feeding distance after mixing: ≤1 meter drop.
The above ten items are classic quality requirements that enterprises must fulfill standardized control. According to the theory of two mixers, achieving uniform glass would require 70% work on the solid mixture during cold conditions and could be easily accomplished, and the key now is for glass bottle enterprises to understand.
