Product Description

Owens-Illinois, Inc. (Toledo, Ohio — the “OI” glass-container giant, founded 1929) manufactured the original Kaylo calcium-silicate insulation product from its introduction in 1948 through the 1958 sale of the Kaylo product line to Owens-Corning Fiberglas. During the OI Kaylo era, Kaylo pipe and block insulation was widely specified in laboratory and pilot-plant installations — including as insulating jackets around glass reactors, distillation columns, condensers, evaporators, and hot-process glassware, and as asbestos-containing lining and gasket material in laboratory muffle furnaces, drying ovens, and ashing furnaces.

Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that Owens-Illinois Kaylo insulation contained asbestos (amosite / crocidolite / chrysotile blends per era) and that laboratory technicians, scientific-glass fitters, pilot-plant operators, and facilities maintenance workers who fitted, cut, or replaced Kaylo jackets around hot-process glass equipment and laboratory furnaces were exposed to airborne asbestos fibers.

Laboratory glassware insulation is a documented but under-recognized asbestos-exposure pathway: pilot-plant and research-lab glass reactors and columns operated at elevated temperatures were commonly wrapped in Kaylo half-shells cut to fit the glassware, with cloth-and-wire ties, and replaced whenever the glassware was serviced, cleaned, or reconfigured. Muffle furnaces and ashing furnaces used in university, industrial, and pharmaceutical laboratories were similarly lined with asbestos-containing insulating material.

Owens-Illinois has been named as a Manufacturer Defendant in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation.

Workers Exposed

  • Laboratory technicians and research chemists working around insulated hot-process glassware in university, industrial, and pharmaceutical research labs
  • Insulators (HFIAW Local members) cutting and fitting Kaylo jackets on laboratory and pilot-plant glassware and process equipment
  • Scientific-glass fitters and glassblowers installing and servicing insulated glass reactors, columns, and distillation equipment
  • Pilot-plant operators running insulated glass and metal process equipment in refinery, chemical, and pharmaceutical pilot plants
  • Facilities maintenance workers replacing laboratory muffle furnace insulation, ashing-furnace linings, and drying-oven insulation
  • University and industrial-research technicians servicing laboratory furnaces and thermal analysis equipment