Glass is a very common material in our daily production and life, and its uses have become more and more numerous over time. Today, in order to meet people's higher demands and the rapid development of industrialization, tempered vacuum glass has emerged as the times require. So, who has developed this vacuum glass? What are the advantages that ordinary glass does not have? What changes can it bring to our country's glass industry?

Science and technology are global and epochal, and the development of science and technology must have a global perspective. At present, major breakthroughs and accelerated applications of technological innovation are likely to reshape the global economic structure and transform the arena of industrial and economic competition. For any innovative product, whoever has independent intellectual property rights has the initiative and has a broader market space. Just like the tempered vacuum glass with international advanced level developed by ICESUN Vacuum Glass Ltd., Chinese glass industry has unlimited vitality in the new round of technological and industrial changes, and it also provides innovation and support force for our dream of becoming a powerful country. The chairman of ICESUN company, Dr. Li Hongyan, is the leader of this innovative change.

Clear Goals & Dedicated Life

Everyone's life is an experience, and the value of life is reflected in the mileage of running well. Dr. Li Hongyan, born in Mengzhou, Henan Province, seems to be born for glass. He has been focusing on the glass business for more than 20 years. With wisdom, courage, persistence and tenacity, he has done his best to lead the innovative development of the glass business. While being recognized and respected by the industry, his life value has been infinitely magnified into social value.

When Li Hongyan was doing his graduation project in 1994, he learned that the energy-saving performance of ordinary insulating glass is poor, and the production of vacuum glass is very immature and still in the conceptual stage. Therefore, a scientific research team was organized to develop tempered vacuum glass. He found that the biggest difficulty is "low-melting edge sealing", which is a worldwide problem.

Inspired by the ancient method of colored glaze that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago, Li Hongyan's team developed a low-melting glass with a sealing temperature of 430 ° C through painstaking research, which is widely used in domestic aerospace companies. Glass, metal and vacuum sealing between ceramics, and vacuum glass edge sealing. As the only qualified vacuum glass edge sealing material that has been verified by time, the low melting point glass infiltrates with the flat glass after melting, forming chemical bonds between atoms, and becomes a dense whole with the glass plate after cooling. Its air tightness, strength, weather resistance, service life and other properties are comparable to those of glass plates, and can withstand various harsh climate environments, and the life of vacuum glass can reach 50 years.

The team cheered, but the user was greeted with a bowl of cold water: annealing tempered glass at a high temperature of 430°C can only make non-tempered ordinary vacuum glass, and cannot be used alone in high-rise buildings. This is the reason why other vacuum glass manufacturers in the world cannot produce tempered vacuum glass and must add an extra piece of tempered glass composite hollow. It cannot form a differentiated competitive advantage with three-glass two-chamber insulating glass.

Is it possible to utilize other glass sealing techniques? The vacuum glass was sealed with an alloy with a melting point lower than 350 °C: it was found that the edge sealing layer was not dense enough, and there were air leakage channels, which could not meet the long-life vacuum sealing requirements of the vacuum glass. Even if a short-term vacuum is occasionally obtained, it is difficult to meet the requirements of glass manufacturing, transportation, installation and use due to insufficient welding strength. Edge sealing with vacuum organic glue: All organic glues cannot meet the requirements. Repeated failures made team members disheartened; time and time again, Dr. Li Hongyan ignited the team with his passion for serving the motherland. After six years of unremitting efforts, in 2001, by using the method of infrared local heating, the tempered vacuum glass was successfully produced for the first time, and the state of the fragments during testing reached the international standard of tempered glass. However, the method of infrared local heating is not efficient, the process is complex, and the yield is low. Dr. Li Hongyan further developed sealing glass with a lower melting point.

The hard work pays off. Through tens of thousands of experiments, lead-free low-melting glass with a sealing temperature of 360°C and lead-containing low-melting glass with a sealing temperature of 300°C have come out one after another. These low-melting glass are suitable for various tempered vacuum glass production processes. Dr. Li Hongyan team have conquered the world problem of "low melting point edge sealing" of tempered vacuum glass in one fell swoop.

In 2003, Dr. Li Hongyan led the successful construction of a pilot test line. After the success of the pilot test, the project of "development of flat-sealed tempered vacuum glass and development of melting sealing technology" successively applied for the national invention patent (patent number 03160042.5) and the United States Invention patent (patent number is US 2005/0243451 AI), and won the second prize of China Building Materials Science and Technology Progress Award in one fell swoop. It has laid a solid foundation for the vacuum glass productivity transformation of this achievement.

Scientific Research & Innovation, Striving for First-class Ambition

The tempered vacuum glass invented by Dr. Li Hongyan is separated by a 0.2 mm high support, and the edge of the two layers of glass plates is sealed with low temperature glass, and then the air is exhausted. The vacuum degree between the glass is 10^-4Pa, so the heat convection does not exist, the heat conduction is reduced to the limit, and the LOW-E layer reflects more than 95% of the infrared radiation, so the heat between the inner and outer glass plates cannot be exchanged, reaching the Excellent thermal insulation effect. Tempered vacuum glass size: maximum 3000 × 2000 mm; minimum 300 × 300 mm; thickness 6 ~ 20 mm.

From the perspective of energy consumption, our country's current building energy consumption is higher than 30% of the country's total energy consumption. More than 50% of the building energy consumption is lost through doors and windows, and glass accounts for 70% of the window area. Dr. Li Hongyan's product test shows that, after replacing the tempered vacuum glass in wooden houses in North America, heating costs can be saved by 32%. After inserting a single piece of tempered vacuum glass into the wooden window, it is tested by the National Building Materials Testing Center and fully meets the requirement that the K value of the passive house window is less than 0.8W/m²·K.

From the perspective of compression resistance, the tempered vacuum glass invented by Dr. Li Hongyan has high deformation resistance under the action of external force. Their industrial tempered vacuum glass technology improves its wind pressure resistance and strength, far superior to ordinary vacuum glass and argon-filled tempered LOW-E insulating glass. By installing this tempered vacuum glass in the test room, the indoor and outdoor temperature is 100 ℃, and the continuous test is 385 days. The tempered vacuum glass is intact and the deformation is only 1%; the ultra-high thermal insulation performance remains unchanged. It fully shows that tempered vacuum glass can be used safely in different harsh environments around the world, and it has become a real super glass.

At the same time, the sound insulation performance of this tempered vacuum glass is 11 decibels better than that of ordinary insulating glass. The maximum sound insulation of a single piece of tempered vacuum glass can reach 41 decibels. According to the different needs of different people, composite hollow or laminated glass can be made into ultra-quiet transparent glass with the strongest sound insulation performance in the world, which truly keeps people away from noise hazards.

Passive house architecture has been widely promoted around the world since it was proposed in 1988. Low energy consumption is achieved by building exterior walls, doors and windows with high thermal insulation and high airtightness. The natural lighting of comfortable buildings is inseparable from glass. At present, four-glass three-chamber insulating glass or ordinary vacuum glass with poor light transmittance are used in houses, but a large amount of glass has leaked air, but it has not attracted enough attention. How do users know at any time if their window glass has leaked? How to make the life of the window glass reach the long life of the passive house?

The tempered vacuum glass invented by Dr. Li Hongyan effectively solves these problems. Through the low melting point glass edge sealing, it not only completely solves the problem of leakage of the edge sealing glue that plagues the four-glass three-chamber insulating glass; The problem of rapid oxidation failure of LOW-E film; the improvement of strength and the realization of complete thinning have greatly improved the life of passive house windows, and the life of glass can reach more than 50 years. The thoughtful design of the "vacuum eye" in the tempered vacuum glass allows users to know the life of their windows at any time. Tempered vacuum glass makes Passive House windows a real product of conscience.

"Building a global tempered vacuum glass production base is not just a dream. Do it seriously, firmly occupy the commanding heights of the industry, and firmly grasp the supply side, and the dream will definitely become a reality." With the love for the glass industry, Dr. Li Hongyan will continue to forge ahead, climb the peak bravely, step by step, and use the strategy and tactics of advancing with the times to truly promote the transformation and upgrading of China's glass industry and contribute to the economic construction.