April 24th, 2026: Dr. John C. Mauro: GLASS FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Glass has proven to be a critically important material for the development of contemporary human civilization. Its influence continues to grow as new glass products and processes are developed to address global challenges in energy, the environment, healthcare, information technology, and more. Despite recent advances in glass science and technology, major challenges remain with respect to the sustainability of the glass industry, which generates more than 86 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. In this presentation, Professor Mauro will describe his own personal journey in glass from Corning, New York to Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. After reviewing some recent advances in glass physics and chemistry, he will peer into our glass (not “crystal”) ball to discuss future glass technologies for a more sustainable future. The latter part of the presentation will introduce LionGlass, Penn State’s patent-pending glass compositional family that offers, for the first time, an alternative to standard soda lime silicate glass for reducing the carbon footprint of the glass industry by ~50%. LionGlass achieves this goal by lowering the melting temperature of everyday glass products by 400°C and eliminating the use of carbonate batch materials. LionGlass also offers 10× improvement in damage resistance compared to soda lime silicate, enabling the lightweighting of everyday glass products.

Dr. John C. Mauro is Dorothy Pate Enright Professor and Head of Materials Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. Best known as co-inventor of Corning Gorilla® Glass, John is the author of over 400 scientific publications and is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of the American Ceramic Society. He is the author of Materials Kinetics: Transport and Rate Phenomena and co-author of Fundamentals of Inorganic Glasses, 3rd edition. John is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors with 85 granted U.S. patents. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering and the World Academy of Ceramics.