What's the definition of chemical strengthening?

It simply to make the glass together by building a compressive stress layer into the surface. Basically, put larger ions into glass outer skin to creates the armor to resist glass break.

Key advantages

Much stronger: The strength is 3~5 times higher than ordinary glas, the impact resistance is 5-10 times higher.

Safe in usage. The loading bear capacity goes up and less brittle. It can handle temperature swings 150°C with ease, that thermal breakage isn't an issue. More importantly, there's no risk of spontaneous shattering.

No shape distortion. The process won't warp the glass. It works on any shape-curved, cylindrical, bottle like, boxy, flat without change its form.

Working principle

Put the glass dip in a hot salt bath(temperature around 400°C), which is below its softening point. The smaller ions in the glass(like sodium or lithium) swap place with larger ions from the bath, typically potassium. The bigger ions squeeze into glass surface, lock in a tight compressive stress layer. The more ions exchange the deeper they go and the stronger the glass gets. Because this kind of exchange happens uniformly across the surface, especially good for thin glass under 5mm.

Where you can find them

It can be used wherever you need light weight, high impact strength and solid thermal shock resistance. Think about phone screens, TV and computer display covers, spacecraft canopies, fighter jet canopies, cabinet glass, decorative panels, electronic panels, greenhouse windows and roofs, and doors or windows for portable buildings. With proven tech, very low energy use, and consistently high quality, chemical strengthening has clearly become the go-to approach.