the story of laminating film

1. The idea of laminated glass

1903, in France. A chemist (Edouard Benedictus) accidentally dropped a glass bottle. He found that unlike in the past, the glass was not scattered on the ground this time. It was originally a thin film that stuck to the glass fragments.

At that time, broken glass caused great harm to people in many car accidents, so he thought the laminated glass could be used for car windshields.

This kind of film is the earliest laminating material of nitrocellulose.

2. Application 

Some factories tried to produce laminated glass in 1910, but automotive manufactory was not interested in it at that time. The first large-scale use of laminated glass was the eye mask for gas masks produced during the first World War.

Ford Motor used laminated glass as a windshield in 1923, but there were still many problems with laminated glass at that time.

Till 1936 PVB film appeared. PVB laminated glass solved all kinds of problems before, it was widely used in automotive windshields and was regarded as a mandatory safety standard by most countries. Since then, PVB laminated glass has been widely used.

3. Evolution of laminating materials

The earliest laminating material is nitrocellulose, with constant improvement by engineers, laminating materials have been experienced in fiber resin, acrylate, and vinyl resin.

The leaping progress is EVA. It is the first widely used laminated material. However, EVA is still insufficient. It is easy to get moisture, and it is easy to delaminate and turn yellow when it meets water.

Since the emergence of PVB, it has been the mainstream laminating material. PVB is superior to EVA in water resistance, aging resistance, and impact resistance. Now the automotive windshield and the exterior wall of the building are all made of PVB laminated glass.

Another new laminating material, SGP, has the characteristics of a stiffer tougher, but its cost is much higher than PVB. Maybe it will be used more in the future.