Self-illuminating glass
Symbol picture: LightGlass Window
For several years the Viennese star-tup LightGlass worked to make the vision for self-illuminating glass a reality, producing prototypes and short production runs that won multiple international awards. Aiming to further develop the vision for self-illuminating glass and to make industrial serial manufacturing possible for the first time ever, part of the LightGlass team gathered the best assets from what used to be LightGlass and formed a new company: Glass Technology, at the start of 2018. The company got experienced industry and manufacturing experts on board as well. Since then, Glass Technology has been able to not only industrialize and simplify the manufacturing process, but also to cost-effectively develop viable solutions to the as-yet unsolved challenges that come hand in hand with permanent LED lighting in IGUs. Andreas Wiesmьller, CEO of Glass Technology GmbH: “With our new team and intensive research and development work, we have succeeded in making the vision of self-illuminating glass industrially usable and very soon enabling the glass industry to produce large series at relatively low cost. In terms of effectiveness, brightness and thermal management, we now have globally unique solutions which were presented to the industry for the first time at ‘Glasstec’ in Dьsseldorf.”
Significant steps in the design process included: 1. Development of a new and patent-pending spacer profile with the following characteristics: • Tightness: The LED lighting system is integrated into the spacer profile and fully independent of the tight interior of the insulated glass unit, thus ensuring tightness • Thermal management: Using a special design, heat resulting from the LED lighting system can be conducted out through the spacer profile • Maintainability: The LED lighting system can be easily exchanged without damaging the double-glazing or endangering the tightness • Industrial production: An industrial production method has been designed. This guarantees reasonable mass-production costs of the insulating glass system.
2. Development of optimised LED PCPs suited to this application: • Higher light output due to improved efficiency • LightGlass Tuneable Brilliantwhite has a CRI of over 90 • LightGlass Rainbow offers the full RGB spectrum • Development of a totally new optical component that optimises the influx of light into the system.
The first live presentation of industrially manufacturable LightGlass was given at Gasstec 2018. The company showed 2 products of their LightGlass portfolio: LightGlass Brilliant White and LightGlass Rainbow. Glass Technology develops technologies and industrial manufacturing processes for self-illuminating glass and smart glass applications and is a partner of the international glass and window industry. The “LightGlass” products are mainly used in the construction, architecture and interior design sectors and enable innovative, durable and energy-saving lighting solutions. The vision of self-illuminating glass developed by “LightGlass Technology GmbH” has received several international awards including the German Design Award 2016 – Special Mention – Architectural Products (D) and Glass Magazine Award 2016 – Most Innovative Glass Product (US). Tel: +43 699 12345 776 E: wiesmueller@glasstechnology.net
