The main factors affecting the energy-saving performance of insulating glass are glass, spacers (frames) and gases.
Hollow glass must meet two basic requirements: energy saving, durability, and seal life. If an insulating glass has poor energy-saving effect, even if the durability and sealing life are longer, it is a low-grade hollow glass. On the contrary, if the insulating glass has good energy-saving performance, but the durability and the sealing life are short, it is not what people are pursuing. Obviously, the ideal insulating glass should have the best energy-saving effect and the longest sealing durability at the same time.
The main factors affecting the energy-saving performance of insulating glass are glass, spacers (frames) and gases. White glass or low-emissivity glass is selected for the glass; the spacer has cold edges (aluminum spacers) or warm edges; the gas has air or an inert gas such as argon. Under the same conditions, white glass, air and cold-edged hollow glass have the lowest energy-saving effect, while low-e glass, argon-filled and warm-edged hollow glass have the best energy-saving effect.
The main factors affecting the durability and sealing life of insulating glass include insulating glass sealant, sealing structure, spacer, desiccant (molecular sieve) and so on. It has been proved that the sealing life of the insulating glass with double-pass sealing, continuous spacers and 3A molecular sieves is the longest, while the sealing life of insulating glass with single-pass sealing, four-jacketed aluminum spacers and 4A molecular sieves is shorter. The 20-year tracking results of the actual use of insulating glass by the North American Insulating Glass Association also confirms this. In addition, the result of the accelerated aging test (PI testing) of the insulating glass shows that the difference in the expected sealing life of the insulating glass using the sealing structure of different intervals is enormous, and the short is only 2 months and the long is more than 100 years.
With the same other conditions, the use of different spacers directly affects the energy saving performance and durability of the insulating glass. However, for a long period of time, people generally use aluminum spacers (mainly four-side gussets) to make hollow glass. Although the seal life is long, but the thermal conductivity is high, resulting in poor energy-saving effect, it appears directly in the edge of the hollow glass. Condensation. At the end of the 1970s, composite tapes exhibited low thermal conductivity and improved energy efficiency compared to aluminum spacers used to make hollow glass, but unfortunately they also reduced seal life.
This misfortune is also manifested in the fact that in the traditional thinking framework, no matter how hard people work hard and improve, the energy saving effect of insulating glass can be improved and the durability of seal life can not be achieved. In the late 1980s, two Canadian scientists who were courageous and enterprising in their first challenge developed a pair of contradictory methods to solve the problem of energy saving and durability of hollow glass. The super spacers caused a buzz in the field of insulating glass. . Super spacers are continuous spacer strips made of a silicone microporous structural material that contains no metal and contains 3A molecular sieves. Its characteristics are the smallest thermal conductivity, can greatly increase the temperature around the edge of the hollow glass, achieve 40% of the energy saving effect of low-emissivity glass, and greatly reduce the degree of condensation around the edges of the glass. The use of super spacers for the production of insulating glass uses a reversed two-pass sealing method, so that the hollow glass has excellent durability and sealing life, can be up to more than 100 years. According to North America's use of super spacers to make insulating glass, hollow glass made with super spacers not only has good energy-saving performance, but also minimizes the problem of after-sales service (complaint) due to its excellent durability and sealing life. . In North America, manufacturers of hollow glass using super spacers have given the end-user a written commitment of the industry's longest shelf life of 20 years, while the shelf life of other manufacturers is only 5 to 15 years. Currently, in many bay systems, the super bay is the only bay that can maintain the best energy saving state of the hollow glass during use for a long period of time.