Recent advances in the chemical strengthening of glass

摘要： Since its development in the early 1960s till recently, applications of the glass chemical strengthening technology were limited mostly to aircraft cockpit windshields, photocopier transparencies, and hard disks. The interest has been renewed by a need to have stronger and lighter glass products, led mostly by display cover in personal mobile electronic devices, such as cell phones, and glass packaging for safe delivery of medicines in pharmaceutical applications. In this paper, I suggest that the science of the compressive stress development is nearly completely understood. The so-called “dilation anomaly” is resolved. Newer technologies are being developed, for example, thin float-produced flat glasses can be strengthened with reduced warp. Molten salt bath maintenance techniques to avoid discarding of degraded salt have been developed to some extent. In addition to more and more pharmaceutical businesses looking to strengthen the glass packaging to avoid costly recalls, interest is also high in break-resistant automobile and locomotive transparencies. Other miscellaneous topics where the use of chemically strengthened glass could bring value-added premium are also mentioned.