Reference address:Via Briati 10, 30141 Murano (Venice)

Website: www.spevetro.it

Company profile

Stazione Sperimentale del Vetro is a glass science and technology research institute, created in 1956 and operating since then with the mission of supporting the whole national and international glass industry (hollow, flat and technical glass, glass fibres, hand-made glass, raw materials, refractories, furnaces, etc.) in its scientific and technological issues, acting as a strong link between research on one side and industrial application on the other.

Its headquarters are located in the island of Murano-Venice, while the testing laboratories for architectural glazing, as well as the base of the mobile laboratories for environmental on site analyses, are located in the mainland in Marghera.

SSV is at present a non-profit private company, owned at 75% by the Chamber of Commerce of Venice and at 25% by Assovetro Servizi (the Association of Italian Glass Industries). The main activities carried out at SSV are developed in two main directions: technical assistance, analytical support, expert consultancy on one side, and applied research on the other, either precompetitive (e.g. under EU, Italian or other funding) or under NDA.

SSV is entitled by the Italian law n.46, 1982 to High Qualification in the Applied Research Field. In 1993 it was recognized as a Test Laboratory in compliance with UNI-EN 45000 . It is, at present, accredited by ACCREDIA in compliance with UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17025 n° 0073 for the tests reported in www.accredia.it and in "Services" and is a Notified body in the European Union (N. 1694) for the application of the EU Regulation n.305/2011 on architectural glazing.

The analytical equipment, the staff expertise and constant training, and the mobile laboratories are all designed to grant timely intervention and to provide prompt answers and solutions to the problems submitted by glass factories.

SSV services range from complete glass characterization (chemical, optical, thermo-physical, mechanical), to food contact and pharmaceutical analyses, from batch characterization and optimization (raw materials an cullet quality control, formulation and colour changes, fining optimization, redox control), to on site furnace emissions sampling and analysis, from complete furnace audits (energy balance, endoscopic inspection, external thermography, combustion optimization, NOx reduction) to defect analysis and interpretation (fractography, micro-analysis of stones and cords, gas bubble analysis), etc.