Manufacture of quartz glass

Abstract

Abstract PURPOSE:To obtain quartz glass free from cracking and easy to dehydrate by cooling and freezing silicic acid gel formed by the hydrolysis of a silicon compound after which the gel is vacuum dried and converted into transparent glass by heat dehydration. CONSTITUTION:A hydrolyzable silicon compound is hydrolyzed in a liq. phase to form silicic acid gel. This gel is then cooled, freezed, vacuum dried, and converted into transparent glass by heating in an atmosphere contg. a halogen-contg. dehydrating agent. The silicon compound used includes alcoholates such as Si(OCH3)4 and Si(OC2H5)4 represented by formula Si(OR)4 (where R is alkyl) and SiCl4. The dehydrating agent is added to remove OH groups in porous gel or quartz glass, and SOCl2, SO2Cl2, S2Cl2, CCl4 or the like is used as the agent.

Inventors

• 👤 Masao Kawachi
• 👤 Mitsuho Yasu
• 👤 Takao Edahiro

Bibliographic Details