Prospects and State of the Glass Industry in Saudi Arabia and a preliminary assessment of the quality of Glass and Glass-Ceramics Fabrication

Abstract

Although the economic value of glass products and its importance to the Saudi National Economy is vast, not much information is available about the current state of the art of the industry. Likewise little information is available about the geography, potential sites for mining sand as well as the evaluation of sand quality. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by presenting a feasibility study of fabricating normal glass and glass ceramics from Saudi Arabia’s domestically available raw materials. It discusses the current status of glass industry in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East region. It also gives a brief explanation about the sand topography in Saudi Arabia. In order to determine the feasibility of fabricating glass using these raw materials, experimental data on the fabrication of normal glass and glass-ceramics from indigenously available raw materials was obtained and reported as part of the findings of this paper Firstly, normal transparent glass were able to be fabricated without any apparent large defects using sand collected from Ar-Rayis region in Saudi Arabia. Four nano-sized crystallization catalysts, namely VC, WC, TiC and Y₂O₃, were added to the constituents of the glass in 3 wt.%.  For VC, the crystallization process was limited. The glass ceramics of WC consisted of multi-dimensional edges crystals which covered all the matrix. Gray crystalline whiskers were obtained by addition of TiC. The Y₂O₃- glass ceramics consisted of multi-directionally rosette crystals. Finally, the microhardness values of the added crystallization catalysts glass ceramics were obtained and found to be much higher compared to normal glass. The results show that glass of high quality can be produced specifically for Ar—Rayis region which would be of interest to researchers, glass industry personnel and potential investors