These books are helpful to your research.

Best regards

Ashok

I also recommend Shelby's book.

I also recommend Shelby's book as a good introductory text. Other books include those by Arun Varshneya, and there are lots of out-of-print books that you can pick up cheaply second-hand such as Doremus, Paul, and others. If you are looking for practical "how-to-do-this" type books then I advise looking online as these practical hints and tips tend not to be what you find in books so often. If you are wanting to know about industrial glass making processes, rather than laboratory ones, then I advise definitely looking online as there are some very useful texts from, for example, British Glass Manufacturer's Confederation and GMIC. Hope this helps!

First, I thank the responders for their kind words about my book. Unfortunately, while it does discuss the glass formation process in detail, I'm not sure it directly answers this question. The problem of crucibles is a big one, since they can range from glass (vitreous silica) to porcelain, to ceramics (alumina, zirconia, fire clay, etc.) to both cheap metals (iron, nickel, etc.) to precious metals (platinum and several different platinum alloys, gold). The choice of crucible type is highly dependent on the composition of the glass being prepared, funds available, size of the desired melt (a kg melt, e.g. would require an extremely expensive Pt alloy crucible). Some compositions can destroy Pt alloys (e.g. high lead compositions, some phosphates), while others will react so strongly with oxides that it is impossible to make a glass without a lot of contamination.

I wish I knew of a source which really summarized the literature on crucible selection for laboratory melts. I picked up a lot of information over my 40+ years making glasses, but still don't consider myself an expert. If anyone knows of a paper which really addresses this, I sure like the reference.

Same goes for laboratory furnaces. First, the temperature needed for the type of glass being made is essential in choosing a furnace. I've made glasses in homebuilt furnaces which only get to 400 C and in commercial furnaces which react over 2000 C. All depends on what you are melting. People forget that too high a temp can sometimes be just as bad as too low a temp. due to evaporation of the raw materials. I once had a student (not one of mine) tell me that he put a batch in a furnace overnight and his crucible was empty when he checked it the next morning. He had tried to melt 10 grams of sodium metaphosphate at 1400 C for 24 hours.

Like it or not, glass making of laboratory compositions covering most of the periodic table is still an art. Experience is still the only real source of knowledge.

So, in reply to the questioner, please tell me the composition you want to melt, the size of the batch, and the raw materials you want to use, along with the impurity content you are willing to accept and the amount of money you have for crucibles and furnaces and "maybe" I can help you.

I also recommend James Shelby's book and one more book by Arun K Varshneya ...which are most appropriate for the questionnaire as these books discusses the overview of glass making and some other topics which are useful to understand fundamentals of glasses

Hi Madavan

When you are planning to prepare a glass, at least for the first time, you should go to phase diagrams (at least binaries) that include the crucible material and each one of your reactives, to analyze solubilities and temperatures of liquid formation, of course eutectics.

Regards

Miguel

Thank you for your suggestion sir. Miguel Oscar Prado

Now I have made some trials with Ceramic crucibles of Graphite and SiC coated but the thing was I can`t use it after two trials.

Thank you for your information sir Atul Khanna

Already I`m Using 1600 deg C furnace. But I didn`t tried with Pt crucible.

I am using E-glass marble (Borosilicate glass)

All classic books on gravimetric analysis solve your questions. Regards