GOALI: Collaborative Research: Understanding Composition-Structure-Chemical Durability Relationships in Multicomponent Oxide Glasses: Influence of Mixed Network Former Effect

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NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: Advanced technical glasses are key in many areas of our lives, and although glass is rightly perceived as a robust material, it is nevertheless subject to corrosion due to interaction with water and the environment thereby limiting the functionality of this highly versatile material. A deeper understanding of glass corrosion is thus highly relevant to industry in the development of technical glasses, in enabling applications such as nuclear waste management, and in developing novel biomaterials. This project aims at understanding the fundamental science governing corrosion of multicomponent silicate glasses with mixed glass formers in aqueous solutions, achieved through an integrated combination of experimental studies and computer simulation approaches. Successful completion of this project is expected to lay the foundation of new fundamental knowledge for the understanding of composition-structure-property relationships in glass corrosion, with tangible implications on the glass and packaging industries. By training undergraduate and graduate students in glass science and engineering, the lacuna of talent in the pipeline for the US glass/materials science industry is being reduced. Students in this project are receiving part of their training at Corning, Incorporated, a company specializing in technical glass materials, or in a European research environment. The education activities build interest in students at the middle and high school level, in addition to the training of undergraduate and graduate science and engineering students.TECHNICAL DETAILS: While glass corrosion has been studied for a long time, it is riddled with complexity that makes a holistic understanding deceptively difficult. The current understanding in this field is based primarily on empirical data, and there is still no complete consensus on the basic mechanism of glass dissolution that applies to a wide composition space. Therefore, there is exigent need to develop solid fundamental understanding of the connection between chemical composition, atomic/molecular structure and chemical durability of glasses in order to address crucial and scientifically challenging problems. Accordingly, the project aims at combining the strengths of experimental studies and atomistic computer simulations to understand the connection between composition, molecular structure, and dissolution behavior of SiO2-rich multicomponent oxide glasses comprising multiple network forming oxides (B2O3, Al2O3, P2O5). The general focus on silicate systems helps to connect with real-world multicomponent glasses, and provides a suitable platform for (some) known structural trends to connect with durability properties. The project is expected to unearth the fundamental science governing the corrosion of glasses and deliver experimental data along with structural descriptors and energy functions that can be used to develop theoretical models predicting the chemical durability of glasses.