COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CELLULAR GLASS TYPES MADE BY THE NON-CONVENTIONAL TECHNIQUE OF MICROWAVE HEATING-A REVIEW

Abstract

The comparative analysis of the cellular glass products manufactured by the non-conventional microwave heating method compared to those made on a large scale by conventional methods is presented in this paper. Applying the non-conventional method was carried out in recent years by authors of the current article. Four different testing versions were selected by the composition of the material mixture including the expanding agent as well as the operational parameters. SiC, CaCO₃, and Si₃N₄ separately constituted the expanding agents used in the analyzed experiments. Also, fly ash, red iron oxide, borax, and MnO₂ were other additional materials included into the mixture, also separately. The specific energy consumption of producing processes were very low under the conditions of using a microwave equipment at very small-scale (0.8 kW), there being the possibility of improving this parameter by up to 25 % by applying the method on an industrial-scale.