GlassTrend's first in-person event of the year focused on Smart Sustainable glass manufacturing.

The conference held in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, included presentations from glass manufacturers, technology suppliers and associations, as well as opportunities for delegates to network.

The focus on the first morning was on the potential use of hydrogen in the glass production process.

It featured included talks from Schott’s Matthias Kaffenberger about the company’s recent hydrogen trials, Tilen Sever from Slovenian glassmaker Steklarna Hrastnik and its plans for decarbonisation using hydrogen under air and oxy combustion conditions, as well as a paper from GlassTrend chairman Oscar Verheijen about the cost implications of on-site produced hydrogen.

Leo Freriks, of Siemens Energy, highlighted how renewable hydrogen was on a fast track and why Siemens Energy is committed to increasing its electrolysis capacity to 3 GW before 2030.

The decarbonisation theme continued with papers from Horn Glass Industries' Lars Biennek who spoke about All Electric Furnaces and Schneider Electric's Christian Collombet and Gary Cafe who discussed Electrification Win Wins.

Sandwiched in between were European glass legislation updates from Glass for Europe's Bertrand Cazes and Glass Fibre Europe's Cedric Janssens, who provided the flat glass industry's 2050 climate neutrality vision and the Life Cycle Assessment of continuous filament glass fibre respectively.

The day concluded with talks from Rosi-Solar’s Antoine Chaloux who discussed a project to recycle photovoltaic panels and Dr John C. Mauro of Penn State University.

Dr Mauro’s presentation, the last of the day, attracted the most questions. His paper introduced LionGlass, a new family of glass compositions that can lower the melting temperature of glass by about 300-400C and eliminate the use of carbonate batch materials.

Delegates included guests from USA, Japan, Turkey and Europe. The event took place in Evoluon, a former Philips building now used as a conference centre.

The event concludes today (Wednesday April 19) with papers from the Nazare Green Hydrogen Valley, Verallia and Sisecam.

GlassTrend is an association founded and organised by CelSian.

The aim of GlassTrend is to drive the R&D agenda of the industry, through seminars, online meetings and collaborative R&D projects.

It has 63 members from the glass manufacturing and supply sectors.