K₄Mo₂O₁₈Si₆

Architectural potential

A potassium-molybdate silicate glass reaching 500 MPa of compression with a clear, colourless body — a structural translucent element that sits squarely in the pressed-glass pier and stair-tread register. At 1150 °C it melts and anneals cleanly, and the 400 g batch with a 5 kg workshop ceiling allows meaningful runs: a set of transparent treads, a series of partition beams, a pressed column-like pier. Natural placements are inhabitable-clarity applications where the glass has to work as both daylight admitter and load-carrying element: stair treads walked on from above in residential or studio architecture, light-well piers in galleries, floor panels in atrium inserts, transparent screens in bath-house and spa interiors, pressed-glass beams in small civic pavilions. Against float glass the embodied CO₂ is essentially neutral and the energy overhead two-thirds lower, so the specification is environmentally clean. Compared to the vanadium-bearing sibling in the same family, this body stays colourless rather than absorbing visible light — a different architectural argument, privileging clarity over thermal behaviour. The caveat is annealing and cost: at 45 mm depth the slow cool is non-negotiable, edge conditioning must be specified from the outset, and at €23.58 per 400 g batch the molybdate content pushes the piece toward signature-element use rather than bulk partition glazing.

Material character

The slab reads clear with only the faintest warm cast from residual molybdate content, brighter and less tinted than the grey-blue vanadium sibling in the same family. At 3.11 g/cm³ in an 85×85×45 mm piece, the body sits heavier than ordinary soda-lime glass of the same dimensions — a firm two-handed lift, closer in register to lead crystal than to float stock. Translucent through the full 45 mm, passing daylight with a very slight golden tone along the long edge. Surface carries the pressed-glass sheen with visible anneal striae close to one long edge; cold-cut edges show lapidary bloom and expect polishing as part of the tectonic.