Linear Free Energy Relationships in Glass Corrosion

Abstract

Various theoretical models that have been proposed to correlate glass durability to their composition for a wide variety of silicate, borosilicate, and aluminosilicate glasses are examined. Comparisons are made between the predictions of these models and those of an empirical formulation extracted from existing data in the present work. The empirical approach provides independent confirmation of the relative accuracy of the silica release rate predictions of the different theoretical models in static leaching systems. Extensions of the empirical approach used in this work are discussed.

High-Level Nuclear-Waste Borosilicate Glass: A Compendium of Characteristics

“…Surface analytical methods indicate [ 11] that a steadystate period, characterized by nearly constant thicknesses of the diffusion and gel layers, follows the initial transient period when the rate of etching or dissolution of the gel layer is equal to the rate of penetration of the diffusion layer into the underlying glass. For nuclear waste glasses reacted over sufficiently long periods of time, this simple steady-state picture is complicated by precipitation of secondary phases from solution or by in situ aging of the gel layer [12].…”