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Stability and Alteration of Naturally Occurring Low-Silica Glasses: Implications for the Long term Stability of Waste Form Glasses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2011

Carlton C. Allen
Carlton C. Allen*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Institute of Meteoritics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131USA
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Abstract

Volcanic glass of basaltic composition (approximately 50 wt.% SiO2) was studied as a natural analogue to proposed nuclear waste form glasses. Basaltic glass can resist devitrification and remain glassy for periods in excess of 10 m.y. Surface alteration of the glass occurs rapidly upon exposure to water or hydrothermal fluids, but is essentially absent if the glass remains dry. Alteration is restricted to a rind of clay-like, cryptocrystalline palagonite, generally less than 100 μm thick. Formation of this rind protects the underlying glass from further alteration. Similar rinds, or “gel layers”, have been produced in laboratory and field tests with borosilicate glasses. Major cations within the basaltic glass are selectively depleted or enriched relative to the glass in the alteration rind. Qualitatively-similar depletion and enrichment patterns characterize the short-term leaching behavior of candidate waste form glasses.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 11: Symposium – Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management V , 1981 , 37
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1982

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References

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