What is it about?
This research focuses on the effect of aluminium on the atomic structure and the physical properties of silicate melts, and of glasses formed by their rapid cooling. We studied how aluminium enters in the melt atomic structure, and how this changes its disorder. We relate this to the ability of the melt to flow, with aluminium playing an important role during the exchanges of chemical bonds required to allow the melt to flow.
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Why is it important?
Aluminium plays a central role in geologic and industrial silicate melts and glasses. For instance, they represent the magmas erupted during volcanic eruptions at Earth surface. They further are used to manufacture various glass products such as handheld device screens or car windshields. Understanding the effect of aluminium on the atomic structure and the physical properties of glasses and melts will help manufacturing glasses less prone to fracture, for instance. It also will allow us to better understand how the mobility of magmas changes in volcanoes as a function of the magma cristallisation history.
Perspectives
Discovering how aluminium changes the structure and properties of such materials, as well as how it may allow them to flow, was a very motivating experience to me. Furthermore, the data in this paper are simply of excellent quality, and this is a real pleasure to publish such a dataset. I therefore hope that you will enjoy the reading, and that it may trigger some interest and new questions regarding the structure of glasses and melts, and its importance for our everyday life!
Dr Charles Le Losq
Universite Sorbonne Paris Cite
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The role of Al3+ on rheology and structural changes in sodium silicate and aluminosilicate glasses and melts, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, February 2014, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2013.11.010.
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Contributors
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