Chemicals and Compositional Abrasive Materials for Coated Glass

Low E Glass is usually coated with extremely thin layers of different metallic compounds.   These can be only 40 angstroms deep.  Which is very thin.  Any damage whether mechanical or chemical can be permanent!  In other words once a coated surface has been damaged there is very little chance of bringing it back to like new condition.

Very powerful acids and alkalies should never be used on coated glass.  Even certain organic solvents can be dangerous.  However solvents are usually the safer chemical.  Razor blades and crude abrasives should never be used.  So when coated glass is covered with very thick hard water deposits it could be easily beyond repair.  Very heavy mineral deposits usually require at least a two step process for restoration.  The first step involves grinding.  The second involves polishing.  Glass is easy to grind.  Since it is so thick.  A quarter of an inch thick.  But coatings are measured in billionths of an inch!  Although it is quite possible to develop various polishing techniques that use nano-particle slurrys.  There are also plastic particles of different micron sizes.  These have different hardness and shapes.  So they can be blunt or "sharp".  Whether or not these so called compositional abrasives are capable of doing harm to a coated surface depends on testing.  You would actually have to buy a sample of the coated glass in question and try to damage it.  The same with any "compo-blade" whether that be plastic or carbon based.  And on that note I will leave off.  Because as some of you know one of the hardest materials in the world is based on pure carbon, that being diamond.  Also pencils use graphite which is very soft two dimensional carbon.  Further carbon black particles used in squeegee rubber is even softer.  So we can see from this that carbon based compounds can be extremely hard or very soft depending on how the carbon atoms are arranged.  Alternative particles and or alternative razor blades can be very interesting ideas.

If you have any questions about this post simply send me an email.  henrygroverjr@gmail.com

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