Can the jacket glass of a thermos be changed from silver-coated to stainless steel?
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The thermoses we use nowadays are basically glass containers with silver plating on their jackets; a vacuum is created inside the jacket, which provides a decent insulating effect. However, if you’re not lucky enough with your purchase, the insulating performance may not be satisfactory, and such thermoses can also break easily. I’ve noticed that many insulated water bottles are made with stamped stainless steel jackets, and a vacuum is created inside these jackets, which gives them a good insulating effect. So I wonder why insulated glass water bottles on the market don’t use stainless steel jackets instead. It would also be possible to coat the inner stainless steel surface with silver in order to improve the insulating performance; although this would increase the cost, it would provide a long-term solution and could at least meet the needs of some high-end users. What is the reason behind it? Please give me some advice. Thank you!
Stainless steel thermoses are already available on the market, and those that exist are basically of the jacket type. The silver plating serves to prevent heat radiation; since the inner stainless steel surface is also plated with silver, it seems that this function isn’t very effective. After all, metal is a good conductor of heat, so its insulating properties should be worse than those of ordinary thermoses
The principle behind manufacturing thermos flasks is to minimize the three factors involved in heat transfer; the silver coating on glass, as you mentioned, is no longer used nowadays – instead, an alumina coating process is employed； To enhance the radiation reflection capability of the stainless steel surface, a layer of tin foil is placed in the interlayer to reduce radiation heat transfer; this is commonly used in high-insulation containers. Speaking of silver plating, back then I spent over a decade working on research and experiments in isolation; after achieving success, I planned to apply for patents internationally. Yet while searching for relevant information, I discovered that a process using aluminum plating instead of silver plating had already been disclosed 8 years earlier. ）
The principle behind manufacturing thermos flasks is to minimize the three elements involved in heat transfer, while also taking cost factors into consideration. The jacketed glass solution meets the requirement of minimizing the three key factors related to heat transfer, while also taking cost minimization into account. The jacketed stainless steel solution, although it can meet the requirement of minimizing the three key factors related to heat transfer, **increases production costs; if you are a manufacturer, you must take this factor into consideration.