NATURE OF POLYMERIZATION AND PROPERTIES OF SILICATE MELTS AND GLASSES AT HIGH PRESSURE

Abstract

The structures of sodium silicate and aluminosilicate glasses quenched from melts at high pressure (6–10 GPa) with varying degrees of polymerization (fractions of nonbridging oxygen) were explored using solid-state NMR [17O and 27Al triple-quantum magic-angle spinning (3QMAS) NMR]. The bond connectivity in melts among four and highly coordinated network polyhedra, such as [4]Al, [5,6]Al, [4]Si, and [5,6]Si, at high pressure is shown to be significantly different from that at ambient pressure. In particular, in the silicate and aluminosilicate melts, the proportion of nonbridging oxygen (NBO) generally decreases with increasing pressure, leading to the formation of new oxygen clusters that include 5- and 6-coordinated Si and Al in addition to 4-coordinated Al and Si, such as [4]Si-O-[5,6]Si, [4]Si-O-[5,6]Al and Na-O-[5,6]Si. While the fractions of [5,6]Al increase with pressure, the magnitude of this increase diminishes with increasing degrees of ambient-pressure polymerization under isobaric conditions. Incorporating the above structural information into models of melt properties reproduces the anomalous pressure-dependence of O2− diffusivity and viscosity often observed in silicate melts.