Glass Recipe

Common glass is made from:

sand or silica (SiO₂)

sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃)

limestone (CaCO₃)

magnesium carbonate (MgCO₃)

additives to improve the glass quality and to colour the glass.

The sodium carbonate introduces sodium oxide (Na₂O) and reduces the temperature of fusion of silica (1700°C) to about 800°C.

The carbonates of calcium and magnesium introduce respectively calcium oxide (CaO) and magnesium oxide (MgO) to make the mixture silica-sodium oxide non-soluble in water.

These materials are crushed, mixed and heated for a long period of time at high temperature to get rid of bubbles.
The mixture is then quickly cooled to ambient temperature.