Walloon glass banks on research and development

Very active in Wallonia (90% of the country´s production), the glass industry has introduced an investment policy focused on improving and optimizing linked processes and is making sustained efforts in the field of research and development. The Walloon glass industry has in this way greatly enlarged its range of products and now meets the demand from the car, packaging, building, domestic equipment and tableware, plastic reinforcing, environmental protection and computing sectors...to name but the main ones. If the balance sheet of activity in the glass industry seems therefore to look to the future, it must however confront three difficult issues relating to the economic situation: the economic crisis hitting its historic outlets head on (car and construction industries), continual increases in the price of energy as well as compliance with European environmental standards.

From hand glass production to the major international groups

It all began in the Bronze Age, when people discovered that certain mineral compounds could be vitrified. Towards the middle of the 1st century BC, the invention of blowing made the production of larger objects possible. Glass production increased and spread rapidly throughout the Roman Empire. It prospered particularly in Belgian Gaul from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD.

The 19th century would see glass production rationalized and developed considerably with the advent of the coal and iron and steel industries. The luxury glass market shone, whilst the production of window glass, plate glass, bottles and flasks became an activity specific to industrial production. The rise in window glass is linked to the improving comfort of dwellings and the development of bottle manufacture.

From the end of the 19th century, the glass industry negotiated the difficult transition, at great expense, from hand to industrial production, from pot furnaces to tank furnaces, from hand blowing to mechanization... The regions specialized: window glass was produced in the Charleroi basin, plate glass in Basse-Sambre, ordinary and semi-crystal tableware in the Centre and Le Borinage, crystal in Namur and Seraing. At the beginning of the 20th century, Belgium was among the largest glass producers and already exported 85% of its production.

In 1902, Emile Gobbe and Emile Fourcault developed the first glass drawing machine in Dampremy (Charleroi). The constant improvement of this "Fourcault machine" led to hand manufacture being progressively abandoned. In 1930, the last factory producing rod-blown glass closed its doors... The great economic crisis of the 1930s and the increasing use of mechanization in the glass industry forced many factories either to close or merge. The "Union des Verreries Mécaniques de Belgique (UNIVERBEL)" (The Union of Belgian Mechanized Glass Producers) saw the light of day in 1930. It was followed in 1931 by the plate and special glass industries in the form of Glace et Verre S.A. (GLAVER). In 1961 these two great producers merged under the name of GLAVERBEL.

In 1965, the introduction of the "float glass" process into the flat glass industries marked a turning point. Little by little the window glass furnaces were closed due to their lack of profitability. Even if float glass productivity was increasing, employment in the industry was reducing. Only substantial companies had the resources to modernize their manufacture and remain competitive. The others disappeared or were taken over. In 20 years, a third of the companies disappeared...and with them, a third of employees. Restructuring then took place via foreign multinationals (the French Saint-Gobain group in the case of Glaceries Saint Roch, the Japanese Asahi Glass Group in the case of Glaverbel, the German Gerresheimer Group in the case of Nouvelles Verreries de Momignies, etc.).

A leading sector of activity

The 2008 figures supplied by the Glass Industry Federation (FIV) in its annual report are eloquent: the sector employs 9,000 people and still produces a little over 1.3 million tons of molten glass (-2.5% in comparison with 2007) with a turnover of 2.8 billion euros, including 2.4 billion of exports and added value of 760 million.

The difficult economic climate since the end of 2007 has not prevented the sector from investing some 100 million euros per year over the last 10 years, which has enabled the glass manufacturers, by equipping themselves with the latest production tools, to make the productivity gains that have been made essential by ever more fierce competition. These investments, coupled with sustained research and development effort, are the corner stones of the sector´s sustainability.

Another asset is the focus on exports and the significant contribution this makes to the country´s balance of trade. Glass thus figures among those rare industrial sectors that for many years have achieved a positive balance of trade. Doubling in 20 years, glass exports represent a significant positive balance each year: they came to €868 million in 2008 (with an historical record of €963 million in 2007). Belgium figures therefore at the head of the EU countries for the size of its glass exports. In all the other European countries, production is roughly equivalent to their glass consumption. The glass manufacturers benefit from three excellent assets: their innovative capacity, their efforts in the field of staff training and their capacity for research and innovation: easy clean glass, sun control glass, antibacterial glass, glass with incorporated LEDs, ecological mirror glass, new generation fibreglass, etc. The fact remains that, due to the economic situation in the construction and car sectors, the price of energy and social costs, the Walloon glass industry does not expect a significant increase in its activities before 2010, or even 2011.

High added value products

It is conventional to distinguish two types of glass making activity: one includes production directly from smelting furnaces measured in tonnes, the other includes all glass transformation measured in m2, tonnes or pieces depending on the circumstances. The place occupied by high added value products has increased considerably. The transformation of flat and technical glass occupies the first two places in terms of the total value of deliveries in the glass sector: the average percentage of flat glass articles processed is 40%, that of technical glass: 30%. The share of the sector given over to glass used in technical or industrial applications, almost non-existent at the start of the 1960s, now represents over 20% of glass produced using furnaces and over 30% of the value of manufactured glass products exported. It is estimated today that over 40% of glass products currently on the market did not exist barely ten years ago. The result is a great variety of products being manufactured: flat glass and its derivatives (toughened glass, laminated glass, insulating glass, coated glass, etc.), packaging glass, tableware, insulation fibres, reinforcing fibres, foam glass, glass components for the lighting industry and special glass (laboratory, optical glass, etc.), stagecraft for museums throughout the world.

Companies at the cutting edge of progress

One company specializes for example in the design and production of high precision optical, mechanical and opto-mechanical systems intended for export for the space, aircraft and professional astronomy industries. Another company produces magnetron cathode sputtering targets, mainly for the flat glass and photovoltaic cell industries.

This company produces and processes flat glass intended for the construction sector (external glazing and interior decoration) and specialist industries (transport, domestic electrical, high-tech, etc.). Its R&D centre, which is one of the most efficient in Europe, is also working to improve coated glass (super insulating, anti-solar and conductive) for double and triple glazing and photovoltaic cells, anti-bacterial glass, electroluminescent glass, etc.

For over 25 years, others have been designing, installing and commissioning equipment intended for the production and transformation of flat glass (tin baths, annealers, casting units, peripheral equipment) or providing services, equipment and complete windscreen assembly lines, rear and side windows, flat and curved glass.

Finally we must mention several glass industry sub-contractors who supply electric or gas industrial furnaces, install refractory bricks or concrete, manufacture glass bottle forming machines, make tungsten carbide and diamond wheels for cutting flat and mirror glass and design semi-trailers for carrying abnormal loads of float glass, etc.

It is also a Walloon company that is a major supplier of glass for the drinks industry. In 2009 it launched toughened glass for all types of shapes, including goblets. This innovative process meant that it has become a world leader in the world of tempering hollow glass.

Still in the tableware and decoration sector, companies are developing and producing equipment and automated finishing lines for glass and crystal objects, producing custom furniture, as well as being involved in frosting, engraving and colouring projects on figured glass, restoring and reusing 18th and 19th century chandeliers from Namur, Liège, Venice, France, Russia and Sweden, etc.

From the engineering side, INISMA (The Inter-University Institute of Silicates, Soils and Materials) serves as an analysis and testing laboratory for the glass industry, the producers and users. The VIC asbl cluster is a network of inter-company relationships operating in the glass and ceramics sectors. The main purpose of this cluster is to participate in the development and sustainability of these sectors.

Still further, as an example of quality, we must mention a firm that is developing, producing and selling optical quality control equipment for the glass industry, and in particular for the production of automobile glass (laminated windscreens and side windows) and all glass products where the quality of light transmission and refraction needs to be inspected. The collection and recycling of glass is also a service that is available in Wallonia.

Environment and return

Energy hungry, the glass industry is doing all it can to reduce the pollution inherent in its production process significantly. It is in this respect that the glass industry did not hesitate to sign an industrial “emissions” and “energy” agreement with the Walloon government. The energy efficiency indicator is encouraging: + 11.5% between 1999 and 2008, + 9.6% for the greenhouse gas emissions indicator. The sector is therefore not far from reaching its objectives set for 2010. The glass industry is mainly concerned with two sources of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2). A first source results from the combustion of fossil fuels during glass manufacturing. The second source originates from the decarbonisation of raw materials during their fusion (accounting for approximately 20% of emissions). Formerly, the glass industry was still concerned by the production of another greenhouse gas, sulphur hexafluoride SF6, which was used as a filling gas in some double glazings so as to improve acoustic isolation. The sector has made every effort to no longer use this gas.  The glass industry therefore represents approximately 0.75% of Belgium´s total emissions.

Among techniques already implemented with a view to reducing energy consumption we should mention: the thermal insulation of furnaces, combustion gas heat recovery, the installation of high efficiency burners, the transition to oxy-fuel in the case of furnaces where this is technically possible and economically justified (four furnaces in the Walloon Region), the incorporation of blast furnace slag into raw materials, the reduction in weight of certain products, etc. These investments have meant that specific energy consumption (that is to say total energy consumption divided by the quantity of products made) has been reduced by over 60% since the 1960s.