Glass wool

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Glass wool is similar to steel wool. It is simply very thin strings of glass arranged into a spongy texture. Glass wool is used widely as an insulating material.

[edit] Manufacturing process

After the fusion of a mixture of natural sand and recycled glass at 1,450 °C, the glass that is produced is converted into fibers. The original feature of Isover ’s TEL process lies in the combination of - centrifugal drawing of the glass - and its refining in a flow of hot gas. The cohesion and mechanical strength of the products are obtained by the presence of a binder that “cements” the fibers together. Ideally, a drop of bonder is placed at each fiber intersection.

This fiber mat is then heated to around 200 °C (to polymerize the resin), and is calendered to give it strength and stability.

The final stage involves cutting the wool and packing it in rolls or panels under very high pressure before palletizing the finished product in order to facilitate transport and storage

Thanks to its intertwined flexible fibers, glass wool offers excellent fire-resistant properties, as a thermal insulation material (for example in loft of wall cavity insulation) and is also widely used as an absorbent material in acoustic treatments such as sound insulation, absorbent ceiling tiles. Its light weight, flexibility and elasticity make it easy to install, which is another essential condition for effective insulation.

[edit] Health hazards

In general the glass fibres are believed to be carcinogenic, but there is only a limited evidence showing that glass wool is carcinogenic to animals. Because of the inadquate evidence the carconigenicity of glass wool on humans cannot be evaluated. But other fibres such as refractor ceramic fibres and special purpose glass fibres are found to be carcinogenic.

Rather than carcinogenic property of glass wool, it is highly risky material during handling. Because glass wool consist of very fine delicate threads. these threads can easily penetrate in to lungs during respiration and can cause injury to the respiratory tract as well as alveolies of lungs and leads internal bleedind. this may leads to severe condition of hemorrhage. another risk: During handlin if care is not taken then small rigid delicate threads easily enter in to the skin layers by accidently and after that broken pieces will circulate in to the blood stream. these pieces are spiny, may injur to the blood vessels, cause internal bleeding. (Raju Dangar, sspc, zundal)