The American International School in Bucharest (AISB) is investing in an early childhood department. The mission of this school is clear:

Under the leadership of Mrs. Rosella Diliberto, the Early Childhood brings together 162 children between 2 and 6 years old in a dynamic, multinational environment that represents 39 nationalities. Every Early Childhood classroom is looked after by a teacher and classroom assistant. The new Early Childhood Center will be ready in January 2017 – a unique project that will house our youngest learners!

To accomplish this mission, the AISB, in collaboration with Synergy  has chosen for GLAPOR cellular glass for the following reasons:

• The contractor likes to work with large EUROCLASS A1 cellular glass boards up to 80 x 120 cm dimensions. Today, GLAPOR cellular glass is the only company on the world offering these dimensions in an EUROCLASS A1 quality. EUROCLASS A1 means totally non-combustible.
• The project also involves the installation of solar panels on the roof requesting a rather large strength of the thermal insulation.
• The customer has chosen  for cellular glass, directly foamed from recycled glass without remelting for ecologic and economic reasons.

This fantastic project subscribes the famous American values of life: a multinational environment for children, built with absolute safe and ecologic materials.

Once it is realized that the market for non-combustible stiff thermal insulation is growing, investors will look for a cellular glass plant. Some years ago, this technology was not for sale, but this situation has changed. Investors can choose for cellular glass gravel or boards. For boards, there is the choice between cheaper glycerin foamed cellular glass and the much more expensive one, produced with carbon black.

GLAPOR cellular glass delivers production line for gravel and boards. This company is specialized in upgrading glass waste to cellular glass boards and gravel with a minimum of energy, raw materials and labor thanks to the continuous foaming system.

CNUD EFCO builds foaming and annealing furnaces. The foaming furnace is able to foam with carbon black. CNUD EFCO is the right partner for the construction of high quality boards with the continuous foaming system.

Schaumglas Global Consulting GmbH is delivering plants for cellular glass gravel and boards. They install melting furnace, grinding, foaming – annealing furnace and finishing.
GLAMACO is building cellular glass plants with the (German) mold foaming process for boards. They are also supplying equipment for cellular glass gravel and granulate.

RATEX engineering delivers saws and other finishing equipment for the production of cellular glass. We took the freedom to copy some pictures of their website.

Fickert + Winterling Maschinenbau GmbH are producing roller machines for the production of cellular glass. We copied again a picture of a website. We guess that the equipment is used for the production of a glass plate, easy to grind to a fine powder for foaming later on.

The competition between different suppliers will decrease the investment cost and as consequence the sales price of cellular glass will become lower and lower. In that way, the cellular glass market will be further booming.

FM Approvals is an organization, which performs third party testing and certification. Their main focus is property loss prevention and fire and wind (storm) are two main causes of property losses. As a leader in this market, there advice is requested by many insurances and having a an FM Approved certificate is definitely a reason to get a cheaper insurance.

A flat roof is always a major risk for major losses due to storm (wind) and fire risks during maintenance. For that reason, FM developed a standard to describe the testing of a steel deck roof for fire and wind risks. Contrary to ASTM and EN, this well written standard is free of charge and the responsible author can be contacted directly for discussion.

The standard describes the fire and wind testing and put some limiting values. Large monolithic GLAPOR cellular glass boards with an adapted adhesive could become a good candidate for this certificate. They have a large strength in tension (monolithic) to resist windload and are non-combustible. The adhesive can be improved with fire retardants and fasteners can be avoided. However, a wind load up to 300 km/h is simulated to get the highest approval.

GLAPOR cellular glass boards on flat roofs are generally installed with hot melt bitumen 85/25. At 200°C, it is enough liquid to poor on concrete or to allow dipping a cellular glass block in the liquid. In this way, cellular glass boards can be very well adhered on concrete or on a steel deck roof. The joints between the boards can be filled with the liquid bitumen to guarantee a vapour tight roof. On top of that, it is cheap and as a consequence hot melt bitumen will remain in the cellular glass world for a long time. Nevertheless, it has an IARC classification, “probably cancerogenic for humans” like cited hereunder.

A- Occupational exposures to oxidized bitumens and their emissions during roofing The body of available data from cancer studies in humans points to an association between exposures to oxidized bitumens during roofing and lung cancer and tumours in the upper aerodigestive tract. In support of these findings, extracts and fume condensates of oxidized bitumens, which are used primarily in roofing applications, showed sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. Taking these data together, the Working Group evaluated occupational exposures to oxidized bitumens and their emissions during roofing as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2A).

We are not surprised that the bitumen roofing world is represented by an organization Bitubel to defend its necessity for roofing. Belgium water proofing membranes based on bitumen are applied all over the world.

Hindustan Petroleum has written a nice handbook about bitumen as an introduction. It is a residue of the fractional distillation of crude petroleum. Oxidized bitumen is obtained by blowing hot air into hot bitumen (180°C). This operation increases the softening point and lowers the penetration. This type of bitumen is used for the installation of GLAPOR cellular glass boards. Bitumen 85/25  (softening point 85°C/ 2.5mm penetration) and bitumen 110/30 (softening 110°C / 3 mm penetration) are the favorite types to be used with GLAPOR cellular glass boards.

Besides the health issues, bitumen is a combustible material which becomes dangerous at 250°C. For that reason, modified flame retardant bitumen can be produced by using fire retardant magnesium hydroxide delivered for example by Europiren. Magnesium hydroxide decomposes at 300 °C-330°C close above the ignition point of bitumen.  GLAPOR cellular glass roofs installed with this type of bitumen are a candidate for a FM approval.

Another way to avoid the fire and health risks during installation is to work with “cold bitumen” or bitumen emulsion. Bitumen emulsion is a free flowing liquid at ambient temperatures. Bitumen emulsion is a stable dispersion of fine globules of bitumen in continuous water phase. Dispersion is obtained by processing bitumen and water under controlled conditions through a colloidal mill together with selected additives.

PCI PECIMOR DK is a typical example of a cold emulsion and is advised for the  installation of GLAPOR cellular glass boards like previously posted. Nevertheless, we are interested in harmless alternatives.