What it’s made from: End-of-life glass that can no longer be used by the glass industry is cleaned, ground, and expanded into lightweight porous beads. Those beads are bonded to form rigid, open-cell acoustic panels. The result is a non-fibrous, chemically inert, weather-resistant material that absorbs sound like a fibrous product but is far tougher and easier to clean.
The lifecycle, in brief:
- Glass recovery — post-consumer/industrial glass is diverted from landfill.
- Processing — the glass is finely ground and expanded to create cellular (foamed) glass beads.
- Panel forming — beads are bonded into rigid, porous panels; available natural or pigmented and easy to cut/drill on site.
- In use — panels provide high sound absorption, resist weather and moisture, and offer excellent fire performance for indoor or outdoor projects.
- Impact — high recycled content and long service life support sustainability goals with minimal maintenance.
How it absorbs sound:
- Open-cell porosity — sound waves push air through millions of interconnected pores. As the air moves, tiny frictional (viscous) and thermal losses inside the pore network convert sound energy into a trace amount of heat, reducing reflections back into the room.
- Tortuous path — the irregular, maze-like structure forces the wave to travel a longer route, breaking up reflections and increasing the time/area over which energy is dissipated.
- Surface micro-cavities — the panel’s hard but porous face behaves like a resistive skin, so it doesn’t need a fabric facing to “activate” absorption; the pores start working right at the surface.
- Frequency behaviour — very high absorption in the mid–high bands (speech and most indoor noise). Low-frequency uptake improves further when mounted over an air gap or with a suitable backing layer.
- Absorption vs insulation — these panels soak up reverberant sound inside a space (absorption). If you need to block sound between rooms, that’s sound insulation and typically requires mass and airtight construction.
Tip: for maximum low-frequency performance, install with an air gap behind the panel (where design allows); for tougher environments, direct-fix still gives excellent mid–high frequency control.
