Ceramic and glass business news of the week for April 1, 2024

PLANTS, CENTERS, AND FACILITIES

New center positions UC Riverside as a leader in quantum vibronics

Physicist Nathaniel Gabor at the University of California, Riverside, was awarded a $7.5-million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop the Center for Quantum Vibronics in Energy and Time, which will be led by scientists at UC Riverside, Caltech, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Columbia University.

Liverpool to lead £125m world-first diffraction and imaging electron microscopy facility

The University of Liverpool will lead a new £125 million national research facility called Relativistic Ultrafast Electron Diffraction and Imaging. This facility will have the world’s most powerful microscope for imaging dynamics.

Lab renovations include unique all-in-one concrete testing

The Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology celebrated upgrades to modernize its Concrete Materials and Structures Lab. The new setup allows researchers to mix many different batches of concrete, evaluate a range of the concrete’s properties just after mixing, and then do long-term monitoring.

Ionic reaches steady-state output of rare earth oxide from demo plant

Ionic Rare Earths achieved continuous production from its magnet recycling demonstration plant in Belfast, U.K.  The facility produced 11.5 kg of didymium oxide (neodymium and praseodymium oxide) grading 99.8%. This success supports a full operational plan for the demonstration plant through to mid-2025.

AGC achieves additional success in demonstration test of solar panel cover glass recycling

AGC succeeded in a demonstration test to recycle cover glass for solar panels into float glass. With the success of this test, following the test for recycling into figured glass announced in November 2023, AGC expects that cover glass can be used to make float glass, which has been considered technically difficult to achieve.

Şişecam: Eskişehir is world’s largest glass site after double furnace lighting

Şişecam ignited its new glass packaging furnace in Eskişehir, Turkey, and put its glassware furnace into operation after cold repair. The $174 million investments increased the production capacity of the glass manufacturing facility to 1 million tons, which Şişecam claims makes it the world’s largest glass production site.

ACQUISITIONS AND COLLABORATIONS

Rondot Group acquires Pennine Industrial

The Rondot Group acquired all shares of U.K. glass conveyor chain and sprocket technology supplier Pennine Industrial Equipment. Pennine’s full range of chains, sprockets, plastic extrusions, and plastic machined components will continue to be manufactured and distributed from its Huddersfield, U.K., manufacturing site.

International collab explores new territory in the grand challenges of wind energy science

A new report coauthored by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory along with global industry and academic experts determined that wind energy’s growth must be planned with careful consideration of atmospheric physics, turbine design, and grid resilience, as well as environmental and social impacts.

Rethinking waste—a decade-long collaboration offers sustainable manufacturing solutions

Researchers at Kandui Technologies and the University of New South Wales’ Center for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology are working together to transform waste materials into highly engineered, valuable products.

Alfred University and New York consulting firm pursue washing of wine bottles for reuse

Glass scientists at Alfred University, in a partnership with New York State and Vitricity, a consulting company focused on promoting sustainability in the glass industry, are studying ways to wash and reuse wine bottles.

New lab consortium aims for high-volume manufacturing of electrolyzers and fuel cells

The Roll-to-Roll Consortium is a new national laboratory consortium aiming to advance efficient, high-throughput, and high-quality manufacturing methods and processes for durable, high-performance proton exchange membrane fuel cell and electrolyzer systems. The Consortium is led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

3M and HD Hyundai KSOE collaborate on project to insulate liquid hydrogen storage tanks

3M and HD Hyundai Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering signed a joint research project agreement to develop large liquid hydrogen storage tanks using high-strength, low-density hollow glass microspheres from 3M.

OTHER STORIES

O-I Glass to receive $125m from DOE to accelerate industrial decarbonization tech

O-I Glass, Inc. was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to begin award negotiations for up to $125 million as part of the Industrial Demonstrations Program. The O-I decarbonization project was selected as one of 33 projects across more than 20 states.

Apple may adopt glass core substrates for its upcoming chips

Subsidiaries of the Samsung Group will collaborate to invest in the research and development of glass core substrates to expedite their commercialization—and which Apple is eyeing, according to DigiTimes Asia. Intel currently has the lead in the area of glass core substrates.

DeSantis quietly supports ban of wind energy in Florida

Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ office helped write a bill to curtail wind energy in the state, email records provided to the Tampa Bay Times show. A version of that bill is now awaiting DeSantis’ signature to become law, which will ban offshore wind turbines in state waters. It also proposes to delete the majority of references to climate change found in state law.

MARKET TRENDS

Romania sets solar price record

Romania’s inaugural renewables auction sets a ceiling price of €91/MWh for solar and €93/MWh for wind, aiming to add 5,000 MW of capacity. Legal concerns linger over draft legislation impacting the bankability of the scheme, prompting the Ministry of Energy to seek feedback before finalizing the auction’s details.

The extraordinary financial costs of nuclear power

While there is plenty of excitement about small modular reactors, there is still not much data about them. That leaves full-scale reactors as the immediate nuclear solution for some countries, but these come with high costs and long delivery durations.

Could spending a billion dollars bring solar manufacturing back to Australia?

The Australian government announced it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those in the solar industry, and guarding against supply chain shocks and geopolitical tension.

NEW PRODUCTS

Bricking Solutions introduces BrickCheck to measure refractory lining thickness

Bricking Solutions introduced BrickCheck, which measures the thickness of refractory lining inside industrial furnaces, ovens, and kilns quickly and easily in a nondestructive way after calibration. BrickCheck replaces the popular, discontinued Linometer system in the Bricking Solutions line.

ROSS V Cone Blenders for gentle and effective mixing

ROSS V Cone Blenders use diffusion as the main mechanism for mixing. As the V shaped vessel rotates on its horizontal axis at an operating speed of 5–25 revolutions/minute, batch materials cascade down, distributing particles over a freshly exposed surface.