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Published July 1992 | public
Journal Article

Hydration of tektite glass

Abstract

The hydration of tektite glass is studied using the ^(15)N nuclear reaction technique to measure the hydrogen concentration profiles of polished and etched slices of an indochinite tektite which had been exposed to water at temperatures of 125–250 ° C for times up to 24 days. Hydrated near-surface layers with thicknesses of up to several hundred nanometers are found. Also, precipitated layers from dissolved material are observed. The growth of the hydrated layers with time and temperature shows that the hydration of tektite glass can be described as a diffusion process. An activation energy of 52 kJ/mol is derived for the temperature range 125–200 ° C. The diffusion coefficient at 200 ° C is 6 × 10^(−16) cm^2/s. The hydration results are compared with those for silicate glasses and vitreous silica.

Additional Information

© 1992 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. Received 18 July 1991; Revised manuscript received 10 March 1992. The authors would like to thank F. Xiong for support in some of the hydrogen profiling measurements and G.R. Rossman for measuring the thickness of a flake. One of authors (F.R.) acknowledges financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Work at Caltech was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 17, 2023