The previous heroes were all experts with the dry powder method. The following heroes have worked or are working with the wet method (or water glass method).

Recently there was a meeting of a group of people, who will change the cellular glass world thoroughly and even a large part of the mineral insulation world. It is a combination of knowlegde, huge ecology loving capital and direct communication without any hiearchical borders.

Dr. Oleg Sharykin (second from right) is an important investor in the Russian cement industry, who believes strongly that ecology is the future for this planet. A long time ago, he recognized the assets of the GLAPOR technology and invested in the further development of that company. Today, GLAPOR has the technology (and a booming market) to produce a product of excellent ecologic quality, like shown in a GLAPOR EPD (Environmental Product Declaration), certified by the world famous IBU (Institut Bauen and Umwelt, Germany). It will be a mistery forever whether two technologies, namely gluing sand particles with cement and sintering waste glass particles belonging to the same investor is a coincidence or not. Indeed, in a lot of applications, concrete boards can be replaced by cheaper and lighter cellular glass boards.

Walter Frank (right side on above picture) is the founder of GLAPOR and took beyond any doubt the largest risk. Therefore, I would rank him as the largest cellular glass hero of all times. Walter was a sales engineer and sold for Horn Glass Industries the first float glass line in Russia, without any reference. But he was also working in the old Coriglas plant where he met cellular glass for the first time. Walter has chosen the recipe of Millcell with glycerin / water glass. He extended the cellular glass gravel process with an annealing furnace and broadend the furnaces to what was standard in the float glass industry. He immideately realized that large cellular glass boards are the future and focused on direct foaming of recycled glass to improve ecology. He did not jump into the thermal conductivity rat race, started by the polymer Pied Piper of Hamelin to hide their own important weakness, which is combustibility. Today his dream is reality, which also means that his dream is gone (is not a dream anymore). His next dream is to jump beyond the typical thermal insulation jobs and to start an entirely new cellular glass market besides the existing one. For that reason, he can not retire during the first ten years.

Otto Anton Vieli is the inventor of the wet process with waterglass and glycerin like already discussed in a previous post. This recipe is applied in a large part of the cellular glass gravel production and for the boards by GLAPOR. This recipe has a huge potential because it foams a low density with rather coarse powder and allows to work in a furnace with efficient stochiometric combustion.