Lighter glass bottles: Fraunhofer coating aims to make glass containers tougher
A new surface treatment from Fraunhofer ISC and Exxosqel makes glass containers sturdier. In tests, weight fell by 15 percent; up to 40 percent is considered possible in future.
Symbolic image · Photo: Bill Gillette / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
The Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC in Würzburg and the company EXXOSQEL have jointly developed a coating designed to make glass containers mechanically more resilient. This would allow bottles and jars to be made with thinner walls and less weight, the partners announced via Germany's science information service idw. Glass packaging is comparatively heavy, which drives up energy use in production and transport.
The multi-component material forms a network after it is applied. According to the developers, it forms covalent bonds at microscopic surface defects and bridges them, so cracks spread less easily under load. In pressure and impact tests, some containers even withstood the maximum loads of the test equipment, 40 bar and 10 joules respectively. Test series achieved a 15 percent weight reduction; the partners consider up to 40 percent technically achievable in future.
The coating is still produced at laboratory scale; Fraunhofer ISC has experience with syntheses in batches of up to 100 litres, but whether the new formula can be scaled up the same way is still open. A pilot plant is planned for 2027. The aim, according to coating expert Ferdinand Somorowsky, is for the process to fit easily into existing manufacturing. Further savings also depend on adapted hot forming. A peer-reviewed study with full test details has not yet been published.