What Are the Differences Between Tempered Glass and borosilicate
Uncover the essential differences between tempered glass and borosilicate glass in our latest article. Delve into their distinct properties, applications, and benefits, enabling you to make informed choices for your projects. Discover how each type impacts durability, thermal resistance, and safety, and gain expert insights on selecting the perfect glass to meet your needs!
The main differences between borosilicate glass and tempered glass lie in their composition, characteristics, application scenarios, and advantages and disadvantages.
What is Borosilicate Glass:
Borosilicate glass is a special kind of glass whose main component is boron trioxide (B2O3), with a content between 5% and 13%. According to the definitions of international standards ISO 4802.1 - 1988 and ISO 12775, the B2O3 content of borosilicate glass should be greater than 8%. This kind of glass has the characteristics of high temperature resistance, low expansion and contraction, high light transmittance and good chemical stability.
What is Tempered Glass:
Tempered glass, also known as toughened glass, is a specially treated glass designed to withstand higher levels of stress and impact compared to standard glass. The tempering process involves heating the ordinary float glass to high temperatures and then rapidly cooling it. This thermal tempering alters the internal structure of the glass, enhancing its strength and making it a preferred choice for various applications in both residential and commercial settings.
The process of tempering glass is a meticulous one, transforming ordinary glass into a highly durable material. To create toughened glass, raw glass sheets are first heated to a temperature range of approximately 600°C to 700°C (about 1112°F to 1292°F). After being subjected to this heat, the glass is quickly cooled using a process known as quenching. This rapid cooling creates a difference in temperature throughout the glass, resulting in high compressive stresses on its surface while maintaining tensile stress within. The resulting tension gives toughened glass its remarkable resistance to breaking.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Borosilicate Glass:
--Advantages of Borosilicate Glass:
High temperature resistance: The softening point temperature of borosilicate glass is about 820°C, and it can withstand an instantaneous temperature difference of 150°C, which makes it less likely to break when used in high temperature environments.
High chemical stability: Borosilicate glass has good corrosion resistance to acids and alkali, and can resist acids other than hydrofluoric acid and concentrated phosphoric acid at room temperature. It is suitable for storing or handling chemical substances.
Low expansion rate: The linear thermal expansion coefficient of borosilicate glass is low and the volume change is small, reducing the risk of rupture caused by temperature changes.
High light transmittance: Borosilicate glass has high visible light transmittance, up to more than 92%, and is suitable for applications requiring high transparency.
Environmental protection and health: Borosilicate glass is non-toxic and odorless, meets food-grade standards, and is suitable for use in medical, laboratory and other environments that require a high degree of cleanliness.
Strong durability: Borosilicate glass has high strength and wear resistance, and can be used for a long time without being easily damaged.
Easy to clean and disinfect: the surface of borosilicate glass is smooth, dirt is not easy to adhere to, and it can withstand high-temperature sterilization.
--Disadvantages of Borosilicate Glass:
Higher price: Compared with ordinary glass, the production process of borosilicate glass is complicated and the cost of raw materials is high, so the price of borosilicate glass product is usually more expensive.
Poor impact resistance: Borosilicate glass has poor impact resistance and is brittle, and may produce sharp fragments once broken.
Brittleness: Borosilicate glass is still prone to cracking when subjected to strong impact or uneven heating, so it needs to be handled with care during use.
Difficulty in repair: Once borosilicate glass is damaged, traditional repair methods are difficult to apply, making the management of service life relatively complicated.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Tempered Glass:
--Advantages of Tempered Glass
High strength and safety: The impact strength of tempered glass is 3-5 times that of ordinary glass, and the bending strength is also 3-5 times that of ordinary glass. When tempered glass is damaged by external force, the fragments will be broken into small obtuse-angled particles similar to honeycombs, which are less likely to cause harm to the human body.
Thermal Stability: Tempered glass can withstand temperature changes of up to 150°C, which is 3 times that of ordinary glass, effectively preventing thermal explosion.
Wide application: Due to its high strength and safety, tempered glass is widely used in construction, home decoration-home appliances glass and kitchen appliances glass, automobile and other fields, such as high-rise building doors and windows, glass curtain walls, indoor partition glass, sightseeing elevator channels, furniture, glass guardrails, etc.
--Disadvantages of Tempered Glass:
Cannot be reprocessed: Tempered glass cannot be cut drilled and processed after tempering. The glass must be processed to the required size and shape before tempering.
Risk of self-explosion: Although tempered glass has high strength, it may self-explode when the temperature difference changes greatly, while ordinary glass does not have this problem. The self-explosion rate of tempered glass sheets is about 3‰, mainly caused by nickel sulfide impurities contained in the glass.
Surface defects: The surface of tempered glass may be uneven (wind spots), slightly thinned, and may deform after tempering, affecting the decorative effect.
Application of Borosilicate Glass:
Borosilicate glass has a wide range of applications, mainly including electronics, home appliances, lighting, instrumentation, transportation, medical equipment, building materials, daily utensils, laboratory utensils, photovoltaics, nuclear industry, aerospace and military industry.
Applications of Tempered Glass:
Tempered glass is widely applied in construction building as doors, windows, walls, automobile industry, home and kitchen appliances, electronics, furnitures, due to its high safety feature, high strength, easy to clean and maintain, and also tempered glass product has smooth and beautiful surface and is wear and scratch resistant.
About Huide Glass:
Huide Glass has been in that processing business of tempered glass sheets products for around 13 Years since 2011. We have strong production and development capabilities, and currently has 7 automatic cutting machines, 8 edge grinding lines, there are 8 CNC precision grinding processing centers; there are 3 tempering furnaces(one for North-Glass, one for Yihai, and one for continuous tempering furnace SOUTHTECH). we can fabricate tempered glass sheet products 3,000,000 square meter per year.
Our tempered glass products includes tempered glass shelf for refrigerator, tempered glass door for refrigerators, tempered glass lid for household washing machines, tempered glass sheet for smart tea table top or bedside table top, tempered glass cover panel for water cleaner and water heater, tempered glass cover for advertising billboard, tempered glass top and front door panel for tea bar machine, tempered glass door sheet for ovens, tempered glass sheet for gas stoves, tempered glass cover panel for display cabinet, display box, or tempered glass cover sheet for showcase counter,etc, and also we can do customized manufacturing according to your unique real applications. if you want to know more, don't hesitate to contact us.
