Scientists in Japan say they have found a way to create a new type of glass that’s almost as strong as steel and nearly unbreakable.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science have published findings of their experiments in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, a breakthrough that could change commercial use of glass.
Glass as we currently know it, is based on silica (silicon dioxide), the main component of sand. The innovative method that the Tokyo team has come up with uses a different process for creating safer, indestructible glass. The secret ingredient used in creating the durable glass is alumina, an oxide of aluminum. Mixed with silicon dioxide, it results in an exceptionally tough glass.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @07:31AM
Lead glass is not crystal, by most accounts.
The best way to tell whether something is glass or crystal is to smash it with a hammer and study the shards with a magnifying glass. Crystals will break in geometric patterns with visible polygons; some big, some small. Broken glass will have lots of curved areas, somewhat like the windy surface of a lake.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 09 2015, @12:39PM
Using a meaningless marketing phrase like "crystal" in a chemistry story couldn't possibly be chaotic, could it?
The best analogy I can come up with is "billet" exists in the minds of marketers and consumers, usually they're talking about stuff machined out of a single piece of bar stock but occasionally you'll run into mystifying marketing terms like "cast billet" or "hammer forged billet" or "welded billet" meaning god only knows what. Billet is for metalheads like star trek technobabble is for engineers or CSI image analysis is or graphics artists.