Mechanisms of Glass Corrosion
Abstract
An approach is developed for understanding formation of gel films on glass surfaces during water exposure. Compositional and microstructural data from ir reflection spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and electron microprobe analysis are used with parameters defined from solution-analysis data to produce an SiO2 composition profile of the corroded surface. This model profile is compared with a measured profile and used to interpret differences in corrosion resistance of binary Li2O- and Na2O-SiO2 glasses. Effects of corrosion temperature on surface gel structure are also discussed.