Who Invented Safety Glass

To make laminated safety glass the maker places a thin layer of flexible clear plastic film known as polyvinyl butyral (PVB) in between two or more sheets of glass. The plastic film grips the glass so when the glass breaks, it minimizes injury from flying glass shards. This film also stretches, but the glass still sticks to it. It is very difficult to pierce laminated safety glass, unlike a normal window pane. London Glazing can advise on safety glass.This sandwich arrangement provides some give. This safety glass also helps to keep the occupants in a vehicle. But who invented safety glass? The glass itself has been around and used since early in the 20th century being an alternative to regular glass in places where heat would create problems with normal glass or dangerous if the glass was to break. It has uses in automobile windows, windows in public buildings, glass cookware, oven doors and safety glasses. The product known as safety or laminated glass was discovered by accident. This accident happened to Edouard Benedictus, a French scientist in 1903. He dropped a glass flask whilst at work in his laboratory. London Glaziers are glass experts.
This particular flask happened to contain something called cellulose nitrate, which is a type of liquid plastic, and actually allowed the flask to more or less maintain its original shape when it hit the floor. During the early 1900s an Austrian chemist called Rudolf Seiden, developed tempered glass. In the year 1905 a Mr John Crew invented a type of safety glass which used tree resin sandwiched between two layers of glass. In 1909, six years after the dropped flask Edouard Benedictus patented ‘Triplex Glass’. This new variant of safety glass was made strong using a layer of polyvinyl butyral between two layers of glass. This type of safety glass had its first real practical use during World War I as the lens for a gas mask. Once the performance of the new glass was proven under the extreme conditions of battle, it began its use in car windscreens. During the1960s the regulations for safety glass were developed which really motivated and formed the development of the safety glass industry.