Ceramic Frit Glasses

Architectural creations in glass would not be so attractive without colour. Besides having a protective function, the possibility of colouring and printing glass opens up new dimensions in creativity to the architect.

Enameled layers of special colours or silk-screen prints have made it possible to augment and enhance normal tempered safety glass with an unlimited range of colour combinations, motifs, shapes and patterns. Because of its safety properties, enameled glass is most suitable as a facade cladding, while the right choice of colour ensures a perfect match between the window and the surrounding glass cladding. Ceramic printed glass is in fact tempered safety glass to which a special paint, composed of powdered glass and pigments, has been applied by way of a silk-screen print, rollers or spraying immediately prior to the tempering process. During tempering this paint becomes permanently fused onto the surface of the glass. This colour layer is resistant to mechanical damage and ageing, a feature, which makes cleaning and maintenance easier. Furthermore, its increased resistance to pressure, impact and temperature fluctuations makes it a distinguished tempered glass.

Process
Depositing special mineral pigments on the glass surface that vitrify at the annealing or tempering temperatures produces ceramic glass. This is a stable, non-biodegradable deposit and can be made in one or more colours, and in different figures.

Key Quality Areas
The increasing demand for higher, sustained and constant product quality requires lower tolerances during the printing process. However, to achieve this goal without production problems, a manufacturer needs to know which parameters of the screen-printing process must be carefully controlled and which can be allowed to vary. Therefore, some of the most relevant process parameters and their influences are on the reproduction of print and product quality.