Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-dtkg6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-23T16:06:37.301Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Corrosion of Synthesized Glasses and Glazes as Analogs for Nuclear Waste Glass Degradation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2011

Pamela B. Vandiver
Pamela B. Vandiver*
Affiliation:
Conservation Analytical Lab, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560
Get access

Extract

Synthesized glasses and glazes provide an opportunity to study natural corrosion processes which are intermediate in time span between geological examples of natural glasses, such as obsidians and tektites, and relatively short-term laboratory tests lasting a few hours to several decades. Study of these glasses also avoids the question of having to validate artificial aging experiments. Like natural glasses, the synthesized glasses are sufficiently abundant that laboratory studies can be conducted to study the processes, mechanisms and rates of corrosion. In addition, synthesized glasses can usually be tracked to particular archaeological find sites with known dates of production and, often, of burial. Environmental conditions are routinely measured at archaeological sites as a part of the excavation process, so that information is available on the yearly cycling of temperature and relative humidity, sometimes at the depth at which the artifact was found. Whether the artifacts were excavated in an air enclosure, such as a tomb, or in the soil can also be reconstructed. One can also determine whether aqueous or atmospheric corrosion was involved in the degradation process. Because so much glass has been excavated from well-documented contexts, it is inadvisable to study glasses that have no context. For instance, socalled “Roman glass” may span a time period of production of 800 years and a geographical range from Germany to North Africa and from Britain to Afghanistan.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 352: Symposium – Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology IV , 1995 , 395
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Vandiver, P.B., “The Manufacture of Faience”, in Kaczmarczyk, A. and Hedges, R.E.M., Ancient Egyptian Faience, Aris and Phillips, 1982 and 1991, pp. Al–132, and P.B. Vandiver, “Technological Change in Egyptian Faience”, in J.S. Olin and A.D. Franklin, eds., Archaeological Ceramics, S.I. Press, 1982, pp. 167-182.Google Scholar
2. Vandiver, P.B. et al. , “The Earliest Synthetic Glasses: Nippur (Iraq) ca. 2350 B.C., submitted to Science, Nov. 1993.Google Scholar
3. Vandiver, P.B., J.G.S. 25 (1982) 239–248, and Vandiver, C.P. Swann, D. Cranmer, “A Review of Mid-Second Millennium B.C. Egyptian Glass Technology at Tell el-Amarna, in Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology II, MRS Symp. Proc. 185 (1991) 609-618.Google Scholar
4. Kreidl, N.J., Uhlmann, D.R. and Vandiver, P.B., “Contributions to Glass: From Tableware to Lightpipes”, in Kingery, W.D., The Changing Roles of Ceramics in Society, Ceramics and Civilization 5, ACerS, Westerville, OH, (1990) 257–278.Google Scholar
5. Kingery, W.D. and Vandiver, P.B., “The Technology of Tiffany Art Glass”, England, P.A. and Zelst, L. Van, eds., Applications of Science in Examination of Works of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1985) 100–116.Google Scholar
6. Caley, E.R., Analyses of Ancient Glasses: 1790-1957, Corning Museum of Glass, 1962.Google Scholar
7. Sayre, E.V., “Summary of the Brookhaven Program of Analysis of Ancient Glass”, in Young, W., ed., Application of Science in Examination of Works of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1965) 145–154, and E.V. Sayre and R.W. Smith, “Some Materials of Glass-Manufacturing in Antiquity”, in M. Levey, ed., Archaeological Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (1967) 279-312 and now ACS series.Google Scholar
8. Douglas, R.W. and Frank, S., A History of Glassmaking, Foulis, Oxford, 1972.Google Scholar
9. Clark-Monks, C. and Parker, J.M., Stones and Cord in Glass, Charlesworth for Soc. of Glass Tech., London, 1980.Google Scholar
10. Brill, R.H. and Hood, H.P., “A New Method of Dating Ancient Glass” Nature 189 (1961) 12–14, and R.H. Brill, “The Record of Time in Weathered Glass”, Archaeology 14 (1961) 18-22.Google Scholar
11. Harden, D.B., Roman Glass from Karanis, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor (1936) 6–23.Google Scholar
12. Newton, R., “Deterioration of Glass”, in Newton, and Davison, S., Conservation of Glass, Butterworths, London (1989) 135–164.Google Scholar
13. Vandiver, P.B., “Corrosion and Conservation of Ancient Glass and Ceramics”, in Clark, D.E. and Zoitos, B.K., Corrosion of Glass, Ceramics and Ceramic Superconductors, Noyes, Park Ridge, N.J. (1992) 393–431.Google Scholar
14. Schmidt, H. and Fuchs, D., “Protective Coatings for Medieval Stained Glasses”, pp. 227–238, and D. Fuchs, H. Romich and H. Schmidt, “Glass-Sensors: Assessment of Complex Corrosive Stresses in Conservation Research”, pp. 230-251 in Vandiver, J. Druzik and G.S. Wheeler, Materials Isues in Art and Archaeology II, MRS Sym. Proc. 185 (1991) and Ibid., pp. 1031-1038 and p. 1039–1046, in Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology III, MRS Sym. Proc. 267, 1992.Google Scholar
15. Brill, R.H., “Crizzling – A Problem in Glass Conservation”, in Brommelle, N.S. et al. , eds., Conservation in Archaeology and the Applied Arts, I.I.C., London (1975) 121–134.Google Scholar
16. Smeaton, J.E. and Burns, G., “Physicochemistry of the Tomb of Nefertari, Egypt”, in Sayre, E.V., Vandiver, P.B., Druzik, J. and Stevenson, C., Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology I, MRS Sym. Proc. 123 (1988), 299–304.Google Scholar
17. Weyl, W.A., Coloured Glasses, Soc. of Glass Technology, Sheffield, 1976 reprint, 205–211.Google Scholar
18. Jarves, D., Reminiscences of Glass-making, B.C. Weinstock, 1968 reprint, 107.Google Scholar
19. Vandiver, P.B., Transcription of Batchbooks from the Collection of the Sandwich Glass Museum, Sandwich, MA, 1969, ms., 14,16,27,33.Google Scholar
20. Lehner, L., Complete Book of American Kitchen and Dinner Wares, Wallace-Holmstead, Des Moines, 10, 1980, 89; J. Cunningham, A Collector's Encyclopedia of American Dinnerware, Schroeder, Paducah, KY, 1982, 172-206.Google Scholar
21. S., and Huxford, B., The Collector's Encyclopedia of Fiesta, Schroeder, Paducah, KY, 1984, 26.Google Scholar
22. Peele, R., Mining EnQineers' Handbook, Wiley, 1927, 107 and 412.Google Scholar