Exploring the Possibilities of Manufacturing Glass in Space

Friday - May 24 2024, 05:21 UTC - 6 months ago

A global team of researchers have successfully manufactured various types of glass in space using levitation techniques. The glass, with similar atomic structures and arrangements to those made on Earth, has potential for advancements in optical technology. This research highlights the potential for space-based manufacturing to create materials not available on Earth and the ability to analyze them with advanced neutron and X-ray beamlines.

Thanks to human ingenuity and zero gravity, we reap important benefits from science in space. Consider smartphones with built-in navigation systems and cameras. Such transformational technologies seem to blend into the rhythm of our everyday lives overnight. But they emerged from years of discoveries and developments of materials that can withstand harsh environments outside our atmosphere. They evolved from decades of laying foundations in basic science to understand how atoms behave in different materials under different conditions.

Building on this past, a global team of researchers set a new benchmark for future experiments making materials in space rather than for space. The team included members from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories, Materials Development, Inc., NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, Alfred University, and the University of New Mexico. Together, they discovered that many kinds of glass, including ones that could be developed for next-generation optical devices, have similar atomic structures and arrangements and can successfully be made in space.

“The idea is to feel out the mechanisms behind space-based manufacturing, which can lead to materials that are not necessarily available on Earth,” said Jörg Neuefeind, who joined ORNL in 2004 to build an instrument called NOMAD at the lab’s Spallation Neutron Source, or SNS. NOMAD, the fastest neutron diffractometer in the world, helps scientists measure the arrangement of atoms by seeing how neutrons bounce off them. NOMAD is one of 20 instruments at SNS that help scientists answer big questions and spur countless innovations, like drugs that more effectively treat diseases, more reliable aircraft and rocket engines, cars with better gas mileage, and batteries that are safer, charge faster, and last longer.

JAXA operators on Earth made and melted glass aboard the International Space Station (ISS), via remote control using a levitator. Levitators are used to suspend material samples during experiments to avoid interference from contact with other materials.

Once the next ISS mission ended months later and the space glass was brought to Earth, researchers used a combination of techniques that included neutrons, X-rays and powerful microscopes to measure and compare glass made and melted celestially versus terrestrially.

“We found that with containerless techniques, such as the levitator, we can create unconventional glasses in microgravity,” said JAXA’s Takehiko Ishikawa, pioneer of the electrostatic levitator used to make the glass beads aboard the ISS.

The researchers relied on NOMAD at SNS to study the glass samples with neutrons and beamlines at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source to study the samples with X-rays. Both SNS and APS are DOE Office of Science user facilities.

“There’s only so much material you can fly up to space and get back, and that’s expensive. So if we can make materials in space and have the ability to analyze them with our state-of-the-art neutron and X-ray beamlines, we can learn more than ever,” Neuefeind said.

This research not only paves the way for future advancements in optical technology but also highlights the potential for space-based manufacturing to create new materials that are not available on Earth. With continued research and development, we may see a whole new class of materials emerge from these experiments in microgravity.