Selling Whitefriars Stained Glass: James Hogan in the United States 1926–1940

A brief history of stained glass manufacture by James Powell & Sons introduces an account of the firm's success in selling windows in the USA in the interwar years, as recorded in the diaries of James Hogan, their chief designer.

Guest Editorial: Platinum Group Metals for a Greener Future

Clustered together in the centre of the Periodic Table lie six remarkable elements, six metals without which the world would be a completely different place. Think about the food you eat, your computer, your car, your mobile phone or even the clothes you wear. At some stage during their production one or more of these six rare metals has been utilised, whether as a catalyst or perhaps in the end product itself. The platinum group metals (pgms) play an essential role in our modern lifestyles.Platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium are rare, expensive and have a unique combination of incredibly useful properties. For example, high thermal stability, corrosion and oxidation resistance and the ability to catalyse a broad range of chemical reactions make them indispensable in processes such as petroleum refining, nitric acid, bulk chemical production and glass manufacture. They are also to be found in a diverse range of products such as the hard disk drives in computers and data storage centres, the airbag in your car or the jet engine that carries you to your holiday destination. Apart from their chemical properties the pgms and platinum and palladium in particular have found favour in both the jewellery and investment markets. Platinum has for many years been marketed as a premium jewellery metal, rarer and more precious even than gold.

Investigation of the Usage of the Opportunity of the "Dinur" OJSC Scrap in the Packing Glass Manufacture

In the laboratory conditions for the synthesis of packing glass, the results of studying of the “Dinur” OJSC siliceous scrap (SS) usage were presented. It has been defined that SS is satisfying the Interstate Standard 22551 requirements in terms of chemical composition and can be used as the main component for the batch of glass containers production.

Structural Changes of Hot Work Tool Steel due to Heat load

The paper deals with the influence of thermal load on functionality of the Toolox 33 hot work tool steel equivalent to the materials of W.Nr. 1.2311, 1.2312, 1.2738 and P20 in order to assess its suitability as a material for glass manufacture preform. Using light and electron microscopy it was shown that the steel was highly unfitting for this application where the steel comes into contact with the hot glass. Regarding the evaluation of the microstructure, it was shown that intense decarburization reflecting on the fracture behaviour of the surface layer during the thermal load has occurred. This fact was confirmed by a static tensile test and hardness measurements. Moreover, the thick layer of flakes has formed on the surface.