What are the stages of the glass wine bottle melting process?

The melting process of glass wine bottles is divided into five stages: silicate formation, glass formation, clarification, homogenization, and cooling.

Formation of silicates: In this stage, the components of the batch undergo a series of physical and chemical changes during the heating process, mainly resulting in solid-phase reactions. Most of the gaseous products escape from the batch and become opaque sintered materials composed of silicates and silica.

Formation of glass bottle: At this stage, the sintered material begins to melt, while the silicate and remaining silica melt into a transparent body. There are also a large number of bubbles in the glass liquid, and the chemical composition and properties are uneven.

Clarification: The glass liquid continues to be heated and its viscosity decreases, releasing a large amount of gaseous impurities to eliminate visible bubbles.

Homogenization: When the glass liquid is exposed to high temperatures for a long time, due to the diffusion effect, the stripes in the glass are firmly eliminated to the allowable limit and become uniform. Homogenization can be completed below the clarification temperature.

Cooling: After clarification and homogenization, the temperature of the glass liquid is reduced by 200-300 ℃ to provide the necessary viscosity for molding.