A new Experimental Way to Obtain Information about Glass Nano-Heterogeneous Structure

The heterogeneous character of the glass structure is, from long-time, in the attention of researchers. Some calculation methods for obtaining information concerning the nature and distribution of nano aggregates in glass were published in the middle of the 20th century. The experimental methods borrowed from other fields of chemistry are hardly useful the results are mostly qualitative and their use to select the calculation method giving closer to reality data is practically impossible. For these reasons, a new combined experimental and calculation method was imagined, allowing the obtainment of quantitative data about the concentration and distribution of nano-aggregates in glasses. By means of the method for experimental determination of the basicity of glass, with Cu2+ as probe ion, relationships were deduced allowing obtaining the composition and the amount of each nano-aggregate in glass from the recorded maximum of the charge transfer transition absorption. The results obtained for some silicate glasses, compared with the theoretical calculated data, seem to validate this approaching way. By means of the new experimental method, the direct following of the technological parameters influence on glass structure and properties become possible.