Antimicrobial chemically strengthened glass and optimization method for the manufacture thereof

Abstract

An antimicrobial chemically strengthened glass and a method for manufacturing the chemically strengthened antimicrobial glass. The antimicrobial chemically strengthened glass includes an antimicrobialsurface layer having at least 0.1 at% of silver ions and at least 0.1 at% of copper ions, wherein the chemically strengthened antimicrobial glass has a CIE color channel b* of less than 1.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to an antibacterial chemically strengthened glass and a method for manufacturing the chemically strengthened antibacterial glass. Background technique [0002] As a result of rapid industrial growth, environmental damage and disease have become more and more of a concern. Especially in recent years, the threats of SARS, Ebola and bird flu viruses have increased awareness of the need for cleaning and personal hygiene. As touch technology advances, consumers are increasingly aware of the possible presence of germs on mobile devices, especially as touch-enabled surfaces are increasingly shared at home, at work, and everywhere. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop an efficient and low-cost cover glass with antimicrobial properties. [0003] Silver has long been known to have superior antimicrobial properties; however, silver is relatively expensive and therefore cannot be fully utilized in industrial glass production. Most...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, the glass produced by the single-step ion exchange method has certain disadvantages, such as silver gelation that reduces the transmittance of visible light, low antibacterial effect due to low silver concentration on the glass surface, and deep ion exchange in the glass. Significant amounts of silver present in the layer have no effect on the antimicrobial properties of the glass

[0007] Glasses that simply contain silver as an ingredient in the batch material used to form the ion-exchangeable glass also have disadvantages

In particular, glass produced from such batches of material will have a low silver concentration on the glass surface, and thus will have poor antimicrobial properties

If one tries to overcome this problem by including high concentrations of silver in the batch material, the resulting glass will have a visible yellow color and will have reduced antimicrobial properties due to the gelling of the silver caused by the high temperature ion exchange process, which will result in reduced glass penetration

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