History of the development and industrial production of low-E coatings for high heat insulating glass units

Hans J. Gläser

Low-E coatings play a dominate role in high heat insulating multiple glass units with which an essential part of heat energy can be saved in buildings. With such coatings as the main part and to a lesser part with low thermal conductive filling gases of the units’ interspaces, their heat transmittance can be reduced from 6.0 W/m2K for a single glazing –still glazed to a high degree - to 0.4 W/m2K for a triple insulating glass unit. This astonishing development is regarded as one of the most important innovations of the flat glass industry in the last century. In the following report, the roots of low-E coatings in the 1960’s, their start-up for production in the 1970’s, and the most important further developments steps accompanied by, and partly also co-designed actively by the author, are depicted.

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