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Organisation
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Organisation Chart
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Materials Engineering
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Glass
Glass is a traditional material in lighting, architecture and the packaging of food and chemicals, but is also a key component in modern technologies such as photovoltaics, solar heating, information technology, microelectronics, medical engineering and fuel cell technology.
The unique nature of glass must be respected in order to handle it reliably and safely. For instance, the use and production of high-performance glassy and glassy-crystalline materials is significantly limited by thermally-induced relaxation processes. In addition to thermo-mechanical, crystallisation and sintering processes, the transport of dissolved gases is also a critical factor.
With its development, adaptation and networking of glass-specific measurement methods, the work of the Glass division contributes to improving the conditions for the reliable use of innovative glassy and glassy-crystalline materials.
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Fields of expertise
- Solubility and transport of gases in glasses, ceramics and metals (water, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide etc.)
- Nucleation kinetics, crystallisation and sintering (sintered glass, glass matrix composites, glass ceramics)
- Complex thermal analysis (relaxation, flow, sintering deformation, phase change and decomposition processes < 1600 °C)
- Production and characterisation of sols and colloidal suspensions
- Production and characterisation of sol-gel-based layers
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Main activities
- Hydrogen solubility and mobility in glass
- Hydrogen storage in glass capillaries
- Surface degradation of solar panel glass
- Glass solders for solid oxide fuel cells
- Static fatigue of glass
- Al2O3 sol-gel-based anti-corrosive coatings
- 3D high-temperature laser profilometry
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Range of services/technical equipment
Glass synthesis and characterisation
- Glass melting furnaces
- Pressure chamber / vacuum furnaces
- Preparation of glass and glass powders
- UV-VIS / NIR spectrometer
Thermal analysis
- Hot vacuum extraction/MS
- Rotational viscometry
- Dilatometry
- Differential thermal and thermogravimetric analysis/MS
- Large-scale thermogravimetric analyser
- Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis
- High-temperature laser profilometry
Ceramic protective coatings
- Rheometer, particle size analysis, spin and dip coating
Crystallisation and sintering
- Light microscope
- Heating microscope
- Vertical dilatometer
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Publications of the division
