We present a study on the reuse potential of flat glass from old windows.
We investigate what type of defects can be observed depending on various parameters from the harvested glass and present developed cleaning and refurbishing procedures to remove defects and realize high quality glass surfaces for reuse in new energy efficient windows.
The refurbished glass, we upgrade with our new SunSmart technology that enables self-adaptive solar heat regulation.
Our new smart window technology autonomously adapts its solar heat transmission to a buildings needs whilst staying fully transparent to the human eye.
The smart solar heat regulating coating reacts on temperature and changes from a fully transparent state in winter to a solar heat blocking state in summer, offering optimum energy efficiency for intermediate climates.
Finally, we present strategies to improve the reuse potential for future end of life flat glass using the approach of design-for-recycling-and-reuse.
All three pillars, refurbishing and reuse of exiting end-of-life flat glass, new optimized energy efficient window technologies, and design-for-recycling-and-reuse, contribute to moving the flat glass industry towards a circular economy and reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the production as well as the operation phase of window products.
Daniel Mann
Circular Smart Windows - Upgrading old glass with smart solar heat management
Company: TNO, The Netherlands
About the speaker:
Daniel Mann holds a PhD in chemistry from RWTH Aachen, where he graduated in 2017 working on design, synthesis and characterization of novel plasmonic polymer-metal hybrid nanoparticles. He currently works as senior scientist at TNO and as part time research fellow at Hasselt University. In his work he develops innovative advanced functional materials, coatings and polymer nanocomposites for energy-efficient smart windows, circular glass, design for recycling and improved photovoltaics.
