Solar Glass Recycler (aka Fresnel Lens Glass Melter - FLeGM)

Yay Josiah! Thank you SO much for all the well reported data as well as the term "melty melty" which makes me laugh :)
Hope you continue the experiments, and keep passing on your information! We are all learning :D

Mike Jay wrote:Great work Josiah!  Nice summary and helpful hints for the next time.  Have fun on your journeys in the meantime

Seconded....thank you so much for all the great post coverage on this project.  All the best Josiah.  

what im seeing here is other practical ways that i can use this magnifier - im imagining all the free heat i can get off it on a mn winter... and to think- i had one and got rid of it! 😳

Fantastic work Josiah. What was the source of the brown glass? I suspect the darker glass absorbed more solar energy as anything darker tends to, but different types of glass also melt at different temperatures. Heck even different sizes of chunks melt at significantly different temperatures. Sand sized glass bits apparently insulate themselves from the sun and don't melt as well as bigger chunks. The formula I found from folks who do this all the time that worked with the rocket glass melter was bring it up above 1600 degrees for half an hour plus so it will melt uniformly, then let it cool down very slowly (anneal) so the glass cools evenly and doesn't crack along temperature fault lines. For anything over 1/8" thick this process takes at least 6 hours according to what I've read and according to what I got to work with a rocket heater.

I've attached here a firing graph from a glass industry paper showing how long to keep the glass at what temperature in order to have it fire properly. The attached pdf is the entire document in case anyone wants more technical data.

I wish I had found this before I started putting any time into the first version of the solar melter from the ATC that only melted a 1/4" circle of glass. Josiah did a lot better, but it also kept cracking. I think the details in this industry paper point the direction needed to get a better result next time, both in telling us what temps we need for how long and telling us how fine our control of our machine needs to be in order to have it work for thicker and larger panels. Reliably getting a properly annealed tile of glass much bigger than a quarter I think is really a stretch for this approach, but not impossible. Below are my takeaways. I invite comment on this list, especially from Josiah and any other folks following this thread who actually melt glass on a regular basis.

The cracking of the cooling glass that we observed (both in my version and Josiah's version) are consistent with the industry technical statements that the glass needs to be uniformly and consistently heated over its entire surface and down through its entire body throughout the entire process, not spot heated, and not heated by a moving spot.

Our current lens focuses enough energy to produce a 1/4" spot of 2000 degree Fahrenheit according to specs. That is sufficient to provide the 1600 degrees necessary to melt that spot about 1/8" deep.

If we unfocus the beam to uniformly cover a 2"x2" tile we are applying the energy at 1/16th its original concentration, which is not enough to melt the 2x2 tile.

Josiah's insulated chamber improves performance, but not 16 times as much. Maybe 4x based on reliably producing quarter-sized medallions that didn't crack. Josiah did the reflector help?

A glass lid of any sort appears to impede solar gain more than it helps by trapping residual heat. Further conversations with glass experts and Josiah's tests have convinced me that even the cleanest uncoated glass of any sort absorbs or reflects too much energy. Someone else may find a better glass for this, but even common window glass which is 99.99something optically pure provides too much impedance.

A bigger fresnel lens (say a free one with 4x the surface area from a bigger donor TV) I think would take us from iffy melty to consistently melty temps on a 2x2 tile, maybe even bigger.

Adding thermal mass within the insulated envelope could help but only if our lens is big enough to focus enough BTUs to melt the glass uniformly AND heat the thermal mass all at once. Without a lot more BTUs I think additional mass only keeps the glass too cool to uniformly melt. We also don't gain anything from attempting to preheat additional mass (with solar) since the firing takes most of a solar day.

Automated tracking should make a significant difference in giving us the longer exposure to high temperatures we need to melt the glass completely and uniformly and give it the many hours of BTU input it needs to anneal. 6 hours plus at 900 degrees plus throughout its body for anything more than 1/8" thick is what the book says.

What a wonderful project! This kind of tinkering is for sure the way the world is revolutionized. I'm excited to see this technology applied to something like water heating!

Mud,

I did not observe the reflector helping. I think that it would be worth trying multiple reflectors to funnel more light into the furnace, however, it seems to me that pushing into substantial gain from reflectors will require LARGE surface area due to the steep angle.

I agree that the most promising thing that can be done with this general design is to increase the size of the fresnel lens so that a larger tile can be thoroughly melted.


Accurately tracking the temperature of the glass is also a high priority. I don’t yet understand the hardware required for that.

I’m personally interested in developing the automatic sun tracking system. I can see that supporting the next 10 prototypes. A sun tracking system that talks to temperature tracking system could allow for achieving more control over the temperature cycle.

Thanks for the thoughtful input!

Josiah Kobernik wrote:why indeed is there no glass recycling in Western Montana?

missoula nonprofit aims to grow its glass recycling service

You really are a genius!!!  

Since that didn't work out, how about turning a few degrees and trying it on something else?  I have been thinking that if there were a way fir families or communities to remelt plastic bags and bottles, and then reuse the plastic, it would keep it out of the sea. etc., and provide a usable building material as well...

A big hopper would be needed, to gather bags and bottles.  If these are different types of plastic, and that would be a problem, then there would have to be a separate melter for each.  Anyway, the hoppers would need fitted lids for various reasons (rain, windfall, wildlife) and the solar heat would have to melt stuff that comes down a chute beneath, as in your design, but not totally on the ground: it would move down a slope as it melts and fill a form, extruder style.  You could have a cutter built in, even, further down the line, to make uniform solid bars.  Perhaps these could be an inch round/square or less, and you could make arbors, chains, and etc w them...or you could just let the melt flow into brick/log=shaped (silicone?) or other nonstick molds, on a kind of wheel; one is filled and the weight turns it to the next.  By the time it is upside down and it drops out, it is cool enough to hold its form.  They could be used to make retaining walls, instead of cob in building/insulating, etc.  Anyway, it's an idea, and ideas are fun.

By using a reflector  after the Fresnel lens one might be able to redirect the beam up into heavily insulated heat box.  possibly heating a mold from the bottom.

By heating from the bottom the primary heat losses of convection out the top and radiant heat that goes away would be reduced, more effective heat and more diffuse heat.

What if you added one preliminary step?

First, use solar power to grow trees, then smelt the glass with the solar power that nature has stored concentrate by releasing it in a wood or charcoal burn.

Just a thought. Cuz most homesteads are already doing that first step pretty well.

Trace Oswald wrote:I have a bunch of fresnel lens sitting around waiting to be used for something.  You can get very large ones for free nearly every day.  Just go to Craigslist free stuff and look for projection TV's.  No one wants them anymore because the quality isn't good and they are huge, but the fresnel lens is right on the front and very easy to remove.  I heard of a guy that took one out, leaned it up against his garage in the sun, and burned his garage down, so be careful.  

Craigslist today in Minneapolis:

Trace,  I found a couple of these projection tvs on the side of the street waiting to be picked up as waste.  I managed to get the Fresnel lens and also the outer protective (clear) layer and a very high quality mirror that is used to reflect the three color projectors.   The mirror may have use in these sun ovens.

I thought of a way that you can work around the problems of inconsistent heat.

Use a small glass fusing kiln such as the Skutt GMT-10F, hook up to solar power. This allows multipurpose use such as making and annealing fused glass objects, heat treating knives, and annealing glass objects made by blowing or lampworking. An alternate method for powering is to have fresnel lenses heat a boiler and run a steam engine in place of fire. Of course you can use a J-tube to heat the boiler on cloudy days.

I think a way to use old glass would be to arrange it (entire bottles? Crush it up?)
Into a form. Arrange the glass into the shape you will want it to be in, THEN blast it with the fresnel lens.

You might be able to do ANY shape with preshaped molds.

I forget that glass needs to be cooled down slowly. I guess that'll make the lens projects a little more complicated.

I wonder if you could use the lens to coat metal in ceramic, like on a bathtub or on those kinds of pots and pans.
I have a ceramic coated pot that has a tiny chip where it could start to get rusty. I wonder if you could repair a small spot with the lens.

Why is the insulated chamber so big? A fresnel lens doesn't create energy, it just concentrates it into a smaller area. Before the energy converts from light to heat, it doesn't matter if the air it passes through is inside the chamber or outside. After the energy converts to heat in either the glass or the substrate, it starts to dissipate into the air. The more empty space is in the chamber, the more extra air there is for the heat to dissipate into.

you can use double or triple fresnel lenses system making a small sealed furnace covered by the last lens, fresnel lenses can be made with a precision cnc over transparent laminate and you can use high temp epoxy instead common thermoplastic fresnel lenses, and also you can make curbed epoxy lenses (even watercooled filled with water and a pump) if you cannot access to cnc.

the walls can be made with high temperature epoxy coated mylar blanket to reflect the light to the furnace that can be made with magnesite refractory bricks, the darker the brick the better as it retains more solar energy.

if you want to make structural glass or make it less fragile you can pour some fiberglass over the melt.

with arduino clone board and stepper motors you can make a solar tracking system

Do you think someone could figure out how they foam the glass after it is melted? I guess it's amazing insulation.... Read that in the post about the guy who was growing his house. The foamed glass is made by a german company I think....

What about a grid of diffusers, like a lattice work, or even a horizontal or vertical simple  window sun blind, to partly shadow the Fresnel... and lower or slow heating speeds, or gradually raise temps?

Would adding a current felicitate the process?

19:45 Melting point of silicon lowered to a few hundred degrees.