Aqueous alteration of silicate glass: state of knowledge and perspectives

The question of silicate glass chemical durability is at the heart of many industrial and environmental issues, with certain glasses, such as bioglasses, needing to transform rapidly, while others, like nuclear glasses, extremely slowly. Due to the wide diversity of the chemical composition for these types of materials and their metastability—no thermodynamic equilibrium can be reached between glass and solution—the evaluation of chemical durability remains a scientific challenge. In this article, we review the current state of knowledge on glass alteration mechanisms and kinetics, and point to some perspectives for glasses for which no direct experimental validation is currently possible. Thanks to the development of novel techniques and international collaborations, a better understanding of the mechanisms involved has been achieved. Mechanistic models have been developed at some specific scales, although holistic models still need further development to link the various scales and perform reliable predictions.