Prefabricated building had never an image of durability but this could change now very fast. In a previous blog, we mentionned already the C-element, a system which uses large GLAPOR cellular glass boards. Today, theory became practice.

Indeed, on their website, they show now how this prefabrication is done. They started with 80 x 120 cm GLAPOR boards but later on, they were using 2.4 x 1.5m GLAPOR boards. Also the first (small) prefabricated building is shown. I copied a few pictures from the website showing prefabrication and installation.

In the next blog, we will discuss the patent, which is protecting this invention. This invention will change the buidling world a lot and this is only the beginning.

We found a paper from 2011 about waste glass foaming with CaCO3.

The porous glass ‘foam glass’ is considered as the new glass products fulfill certain requirements in the building industry in particular (thermal and acoustic insulation). The production of foam glass based waste glass plays an important role in environmental protection and also gains in energy. As part of present work, we seek to improve the properties of glass to obtain a building material lighter with excellent insulation properties. The properties of foam glass depend on the porosity and morphology. The present work devoted to analyze the microstructure of the glass produced by scanning electron microscopy and optical microscopy to be more precise on the size and shape of pores constitute this material.

A mixture of glass and 1% foaming agent was compressed and heated up to 850°C. A white foam was obtained. The author found a high open porosity (85%) and a thermal conductivity of 0.031 W/mK, which is a doubtful value for such a large density and which is measured on a small sample. The author describes nicely the principle of acoustic absorption and finds a sound attenuation of 15 dB.

Noise and noise attenuation are becoming important topics next to thermal insulation. Unfaced mineral wool is very efficient but less interesting for the inside air. I guess there is a new future for cellular glass but this time with open cells.

Open cell cellular glass is not a hot topic today. In a previous blog, we discussed a method to produce this open cell ware by opening closed cell cellular glass with hydrostatic pressure.

Partially open cell foam glass can be produced with CaCO3 as foaming agent but the cells are still partially closed. This product is less interesting because it can not be used where we need vapour tight cellular glass and it will induce problems where we need open cell ware. Acoustic absorption will be rather poor and also the ventilated thermal insulation system will face large pressure drops.

But it seems that waste glass can be foamed into >90% open cell material. I found the following leaflet on the website  of the Ngee Ann Polytechnic school in Singapore. This website gives a large contribution to green building and sustainable development. They focus especially on foaming waste glass boards without remelting like GLAPOR is doing in Europe.

In my opinion, this material is well suited to be used as dynamic insulation, like already mentioned in different posts about clean inside air and improved animal welfare  sheds. But it can alse serve as a cheap  fiber free acoustic absorption material like mentioned in the previous post.

It is clear, there is a future for open cell glass foams based on waste glass without remelting with the folowing characteristics.