Recycled glass project creates solar concentrators

Many of you will be aware of the work of Ian Hankey in the field of glass recycling, which began back in the early 2000s with an unusual request for a recreation of ancient glass from a materials scientist working at Imperial College in London. She – Dr Sarah Fearn –  was investigating how to stop glass corrosion in some of the ancient glass goblets at the V&A Museum and needed authentically made glass to experiment with. She turned to Ian who was working over the road at the Royal College of Art.

Working with old recipes like the Venetian masters did resulted in a very workable glass and this piqued Ian’s interest in the possibilities for using these methods for upcycling glass today. The idea was to add plant ashes to broken up waste glass from sources that currently cannot be recycled, like windows and solar panels, saving them from landfill. Currently the melting point of these glasses is too high – at 1400-1600°C – and adding the natural materials reduces the melting point.

In due course Ian set up the Upcycled Glass Company and has been working from a studio at Brimpts Farm in Dartmoor, Devon, initially experimenting with bracken harvested on the farm to make bracken ash inspired by a Roman glass recipe.

In a subsequent collaboration, he has worked with Dr Katie Shanks from the Environment and Sustainability and Global Systems institutes at the University of Exeter to upcycle glass from solar panels into a special design of solar concentrator that could provide free power.

Now Ian, whose titles include Sustainable Craft Lecturer and Researcher, master glassmaker, founding father of Fab Lab South West, and Founder and Director of the Upcycled Glass Company C.I.C, has achieved proof of concept on the prototype solar concentrators and is handing his research and methods over to MAKE Southwest, a Devon-based educational charity and contemporary craft centre, to take the project forward.

MAKE Southwest has made a video of a presentation held at Brimpts Farm, called ‘Craft as the Catalyst for Environmental Innovation’, which includes an introduction from farm owner Andrew Bradford discussing how the farm has diversified over the years and was open to supporting Ian’s glass venture. This is followed by Dr Sarah Fearn and Ian Hankey going into a lot more detail about the venture and many of Ian’s other green recycling ideas.

You can watch the YouTube video (filmed by Jordan Kaye and Emily Woollin) via this link.

Image: Ian Hankey creating a goblet using an ancient Venetian glass recipe.