Effect of leaching-driven flow on the alteration kinetics of an ideal crack in SON68 glass

The kinetics of glass alteration is studied in a reactor cell containing parallel glass plates with a small gap, representing an ideal crack geometry. The calibrated aperture of the crack is varied from a few tens to a few hundred micrometers. The glass coupons are immersed in a highly alkaline solution to obtain fast alteration. Although the cell is closed and isothermal, it is observed that vertical or horizontal configurations lead to very different alteration gel thickness profiles. This effect results from gravity-driven flow taking place in the vertical geometry due to glass leaching as opposed to essentially diffusive transport in the horizontal case. The advection velocity is estimated from a one-dimensional model of the coupled reaction/transport mechanism, based on a zero or first order reaction. The coupling between reaction and transport has a clear influence on the apparent alteration kinetics, a phenomenon generally ignored.