Neutron-and high-energy synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiments have been performed on the (75-x)SiO2-xB2O3-25Na2O x=5, 10, 15 and 20 mol% glasses. The structure factor has been measured over a broad momentum transfer range, between 0.4-22 Å -1 . For data analyses and modeling the Fourier transformation and the RMC simulation techniques have been applied. The partial atomic pair correlation functions, the nearest neighbour distances, coordination number distributions and average coordination number values and three-particle bond angle distributions have been revealed. The Si-O network proved to be highly stable consisting of SiO4 tetrahedral units with characteristic distances at rSi-O=1.60 Å and rSi-Si=3.0(5) Å. The behaviour of network forming boron atoms proved to be more complex. The first neighbour B-O distances show two distinct values at 1.30 Å and a characteristic peak at 1.5(5) Å and, both trigonal BO3 and tetrahedral BO4 units are present. The relative abundance of BO4 and BO3 units depend on the boron content, and with increasing boron content the number of BO4 is decreasing, while BO3 is increasing.Keyword: borosilicate glasses, neutron and X-ray diffraction, RMC simulation
IntroductionRecently, several experiments have been reported on the study of structure and properties of sodium borosilicate glasses from fundamental and industrial point of view, due to the potential applicability for immobilizing of high-level radioactive wastes, like U-, Pu-, Th-oxides [1-7 and therein]. It has been found that the modifier effect of Na ions influences the ratio of nature of glass network formers Si, B and it is possible to archive a mixed glass network former effect. This effect is believed to have a structural origin, yet a precise understanding of it is still lacking because of the structural complexity of the sodium borosilicate glasses. The structure of borate glasses with alkali oxides has been extensively studied. A nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy measurements show that the fraction of boron atoms tetrahedral coordinated to the total number of boron atoms varied with the modifier compositions [8][9][10]. By Raman spectroscopy, typical borate groups, such as boroxol, trigonal and tetrahedral units were found to exist in several borate compounds [11,12]. Recently, we have started to examined the atomic structure of a newly prepared three-component sodium-borosilicate system, using a combination of neutron diffraction (ND), high-energy X-ray diffraction (XRD) and reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) modelling that are capable of building threedimensional structure models and so yield a more detailed description of the atomic-scale glass structure. In our previous works we studied the binary sodium silicate glasses (70SiO2-30Na2O) [13], the binary sodium borate glasses (75B2O3-25Na2O) [14] and a five-component sodium borosilicate glass (55SiO2-25Na2O-10B2O3-5BaO-5ZrO2) [15]. Here, we apply the same approach to a ternary