Hassel and Marianne Ledbetter MatSE Colloquium - "Glass for a Sustainable Future"
- Event Type
- Seminar/Symposium
- Sponsor
- Materials Science and Engineering Department
- Location
- 100 Materials Science and Engineering Building, 1304 W. Green Street
- Date
- Mar 2, 2026 4:00 pm
- Speaker
- Dr. John Mauro, Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University
- Contact
- Bailey Peters
- bnpeters@illinois.edu
- Originating Calendar
- MatSE Colloquium Calendar
Glass has proven to be a critically important material for the development of contemporary human civilization. Its influence continues to grow as new glass products and processes are developed to address global challenges in energy, the environment, healthcare, information technology, and more. Despite recent advances in glass science and technology, major challenges remain with respect to the sustainability of the glass industry, which generates more than 86 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. In this presentation, I will describe my own personal journey in glass from Corning, New York to Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. After reviewing some recent advances in glass physics and chemistry, we’ll peer into our glass (not “crystal”) ball to discuss future glass technologies for a more sustainable future. The latter part of the presentation will introduce LionGlass, Penn State’s patent-pending glass compositional family that offers, for the first time, an alternative to standard soda lime silicate glass for reducing the carbon footprint of the glass industry by ~50%. LionGlass achieves this goal by lowering the melting temperature of everyday glass products by 400°C and eliminating the use of carbonate batch materials. LionGlass also offers 10× improvement in damage resistance compared to soda lime silicate, enabling the lightweighting of everyday glass products.