Decorative panel made of flat glass

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a decorative panel made of flat glass for electronic household appliances, in particular, for large stationary household appliances. The decorative panel comprises a base body made of thermally tempered flat glass with an operational front and an operational back and has at least one digital print on the operational back.

Claims

1. A decorative panel, comprising: a base body made of thermally tempered flat glass, wherein the base body has an operational front and an operational back; at least one digital print on the operational back, wherein the at least one digital print on the operational back contains organic molecules; and at least one indentation on the operational front of the decorative panel, wherein the at least one indentation has an additional digital print therein.

2. The decorative panel according to claim 1, wherein the organic molecules are crosslinked or polymerized organic molecules.

3. The decorative panel according to claim 1, wherein the digital print on the decorative panel has a cross-cut rating of 0 or 1 according to DIN EN ISO 2409 after storing the printed decorative panel in distilled water for 24 hours at room temperature.

4. The decorative panel according to claim 1, wherein the decorative panel does not have an adhesion-promoting layer between the base body and the digital print.

5. The decorative panel according to claim 1, wherein the base body is composed of soda-lime glass.

6. The decorative panel according to claim 1, wherein the base body has a thickness of 2 mm to 8 mm.

7. The decorative panel according to claim 1, wherein the base body has a thickness of 3 mm to 6 mm.

8. The decorative panel according to claim 1, wherein the decorative panel comprises, in addition to the digital print, at least one print or coating on the operational front or back that contains inorganic pigments.

9. A decorative panel, comprising: a base body made of thermally tempered flat glass, wherein the base body has an operational front and an operational back; at least one digital print on the operational back, wherein the digital print contains organic molecules; and at least one raised region of at least 250 m height on the operational front of the decorative panel, wherein at least one region outside the raised region has an additional digital print on the operational front.

10. The decorative panel according to claim 1, wherein the decorative panel has a coating that protects against thermal, chemical or mechanical effects.

11. The decorative panel according to claim 1, wherein the digital print is electrically conductive.

12. The decorative panel according to claim 1, further comprising a transparent adhesion-promoting layer between the base body and the digital print.

13. A decorative panel, comprising: a base body made of thermally tempered flat glass, wherein the base body has an operational front and an operational back; and at least one digital print on the operational back, wherein the digital print contains organic molecules, wherein the at least one digital print has an optical density of more than 3 in the wavelength region from 380 to 780 nm.

14. A decorative panel, comprising: a base body made of thermally tempered flat glass, wherein the base body has an operational front and an operational back; and at least one digital print on the operational back, wherein the digital print contains organic molecules, wherein the at least one digital print is composed of at least two layers arranged one behind the other and each having an optical density of less than 2 between 380 and 780 nm.

15. A decorative panel, comprising: a base body made of thermally tempered flat glass, wherein the base body has an operational front and an operational back; and at least one digital print on the operational back, wherein the digital print contains organic molecules wherein the at least one digital print is composed of at least two layers, at least one layer of which has a recess, and at least one other layer has an optical density between 380 and 780 nm, at least in the region of the recess, that is lower than the optical density of the first layer at a place outside the recessed region.

16. A electronic household appliance comprising the decorative panel of claim 1 as a control panel or outer door glazing.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

(1) FIG. 1 shows a cross section through a decorative control panel in a schematic representation.

(2) FIG. 2 shows a view onto the operational front of a decorative control panel.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSURE

(3) FIGS. 1 and 2 show a decorative panel 1 that has an operational front 11 as well as an operational back 12 and a base body 2 made of thermally tempered flat glass. The decorative panel 1 has an adhesion-promoting layer 3, a digital print 4, as well as a protective coating 5 on the back 12.

(4) On the front 11, the decorative panel 1 comprises an indentation 8, a print 7 printed in the indentation, as well as another decorative or functional print 6 that has a recess.

(5) In addition, the decorative panel 1 in FIG. 2 has drilled holes 9 in the form of through-passage openings through the entire thickness of the glass.

(6) The present disclosure will be explained in more detail below on the basis of further embodiment examples.

Example 1

(7) A 4-mm thick glass pane or panel of floated soda-lime glass with low iron content is provided. This glass panel is cut to size mechanically by means of scoring and breaking. For formation of the desired outer contour of the blank decorative panel as well as of a C cut of the edges, the cut glass panel is processed by grinding. In the next step, a spherical indentation with a diameter of 14 mm at the surface and a depth of 1 mm is made on the operational front of the blank decorative panel by means of grinding and polishing. In the process, the tin side of the glass is chosen as front. Subsequently, a cylindrical passage with a diameter of 50 mm is drilled in the blank with a diamond drill. After this method step of forming, the blank is cleaned in order to remove residues from the surfaces of the blank.

(8) The blank thereby formed and cleaned is printed on its front with a two-color logo by means of screen printing using inorganic pigments and glass frit. This print is initially pre-dried in an oven. After drying of the print, the blank is thermally tempered in a tempering oven, wherein the two-color logo is burned onto the front. Prior to further processing of the blank decorative panel tempered in this way, it is cooled to a temperature of less than 100 C.

(9) Directly afterwards, the tempered blank decorative panel is printed with a photo-realistic graphic on the operational back on an ink-jet printer. The ink is hardened during the printing process on the blank decorative panel by means of UV LEDs integrated in the printing head. Optionally, the print is coated over the entire surface with a transparent protective coating using the same printer in order to protect it against mechanical damage. The protective coating is likewise hardened by means of UV LEDs.

(10) Subsequently, the substrate is turned over and a single-color pictogram is printed into the spherical indentation on the operational front and this print is likewise hardened by means of UV LEDs.

(11) The decorative panel produced in this way accordingly has a base body made of thermally tempered, 4-mm thick, floated soda-lime flat glass with a spherical indentation on the front, a digital print executed as a photo-realistic graphic on the back, as well as a digital print that is executed as a single-color pictogram in the indentation on the front. It additionally has a print that contains inorganic pigments, which is executed as a two-color logo on the front. Moreover, it optionally has a protective coating that protects the digital print against mechanical damage.

Example 2

(12) The blank decorative panel is fabricated from soda-lime glass with a thickness of 3 mm by means of mechanical cutting, grinding, cleaning, and thermal tempering in analogy to Example 1.

(13) Immediately after cooling, the tempered and cooled blank decorative panel is printed on the operational back, which corresponds to the atmospheric side of the soda-lime glass, by means of an ink-jet printer, with a single-color black print, which has a rectangular recess for a display device as well as additional recesses in the form of pictograms, which, in the installed state, for example installed as a control panel in a baking oven, can be backlit from the operational back with lighting means.

(14) Optionally, electrically conductive structures made of silver with use of nanoparticle ink are applied around the recesses or at least on one side of the recesses by means of ink-jet printing. These silver structures are thermally dried in an oven and thereby attain a specific electrical resistance of less than 250 Ohm cm. They can be used, for example, as sensors for capacitive touch sensors.

(15) The decorative panel produced in this way accordingly has a base body made of thermally tempered, 3-mm thick, floated soda-lime flat glass on the back, a digital print executed as a single color, black, with various recesses, as well as, optionally, a digital print that is executed in the form of electrically conductive structures.

Example 3

(16) The method of fabrication of Example 3 corresponds to that mentioned in Example 2, with a transparent adhesion-promoting print being applied prior to the application of the single-color black print by means of the same ink-jet printer.

(17) The resulting decorative panel thus also corresponds to the panel of Example 2, additionally having an adhesion-promoting layer between the flat glass and the digital print.

(18) The person skilled in the art would understand that the present disclosure is not limited only to the exemplary embodiments described above on the basis of the figures, but rather can be varied in many ways within the scope of the subject matter of the patent claims. In particular, the features of individual embodiment examples may also be combined with one another. In addition, it is possible in an advantageous way to allow individual process steps of the method according to the present disclosure to proceed several times in succession or to add additional process steps prior to, in between, or after the steps required in accordance with the present disclosure.