Flat glass is made with sand, recycled glass, or a combination of both. The sand or the recycled glass is melted, typically with soda ash, so the melting point is lowered. Lowering the melting point improves the efficiency of the flat glass manufacturing process because it means that less heat is required to melt the sand. While the sand is being melted, other additives can be added alongside the soda ash.

For example, these could be additives that change the color of glass, increase its refractive index, or enhance heat resistance. The sand is typically melted in a metal container placed inside a furnace. Inside the furnace, the sand goes from a solid state to a liquid state. This liquid state enables the atoms to move around more freely.Therefore, the arrangement of the atoms will change when it cools, and this allows the glass to form as an amorphous solid. Once the sand is fully melted, it's removed from the furnace to cool.

There are different cooling methods for flat glass, depending on its application. However, all flat glass must be shaped before it cools. As the glass cools, it becomes more viscous (meaning that the consistency is more sticky). Because of this, it's easier to mold into a shape.

The most common method for creating flat glass is the float glass process. Our CHIYAN GLASS M and H series are made by float process.

Float glass is made by heating raw materials: silica sand, limestone, soda ash, and magnesium in a furnace. When melted, it's then spread out over a sizable bed of molten tin. As it moves along rollers in the annealing oven during a controlled cooling process, this mixture slowly solidifies over the molten tin. From this point, a single, continuous smooth ribbon of glass emerges.