Glass wool offers the best mix of advantages for insulation.
A lot of them are coming from the process of production.
Batch
The basic raw materials are natural sand, to which recycled glass and fluxing agents like soda ash are added. Use of recycled glass coming from buildings flat glass, car glass and containers, is steadily increasing. Its share may represent up to 80 % of the batch. Glass batch is made of ground particles with a very precise sieve analysis. In addition, the mix of components is quite accurate in order to get an homogeneous batch to be melted in an optimal way.
Melting
The batch is melted around 1450 °C in an electric or gaz furnace. During that phasis, fumes and dusts are filtered and cleaned in order to limit
environmental impact.
Fiberizing
The melted glass goes into a channel leading to the fiberizing area. When flowing so, the glass reaches the required temperature to be converted into fibers. Fiberizing is made according original TEL ISOVER process which combines a centrifugal drawing of the glass through a rotating device drilled with holes, called spinner, and a fiber attenuation thanks to high temperature gas jet streams.
Fiberizing, is integral, and convert 100% of the glass into fibers. TEL process (or Telstar) produces long, flexible and resilient fibers and the mat has elasticity, resilience, flexibility and high air flow resistance, meaning excellent thermal performances.
Binder
In order to give cohesion and mechnical properties to the glasswool mat, small quantities of binding agents are added to the fibers, just after their production, targeting in an ideal way to have one droplet of binder at each crossing of fibers.
Forming
Mat forming is realized within a forming section and some specifics tools designed to rearrange fibers in the mat. The structure and density of the products are adapted in each case, depending of the requirement of their final use.
Curing
The glasswool mat gets its final shape, strength and stability when going through a curing oven, heated around 200°C, where it is laminated and polymerized.
Finishing and packaging
The glasswool mat is then cut in width and length at the required dimensions, by mean of saws or choppers and the final presentation varies from rolls to batts or slabs, according to the end-use application. Off-cuts are also recycled into the production process.
In the finishing area, facings can be added and specific treatments applied on the products.
Before packaging, the products - panels or rolls - are tightly compressed, thus benefiting from the elasticity and thickness recovery advantages of the material. One can reduce up to 10 times product volume in the packaging, making a lot easier and cheaper, its handling, storage and transport to the customers places.
Units are then gathered on paletts improving eficiency of logistics operations like storage and transport.
During production process, continuous line parameters controls and many final products inspections are performed to ensure the highest level of quality.