The aqueous corrosion of potash-lime-silica glass in the range 10–250°C

It is difficult to measure accurately the natural long-term corrosion rates of highly durable nuclear waste glasses. Care should be taken when using data from high temperature experiments to predict corrosion rates under ambient repository conditions as there are many factors (such as the precipitation of secondary compounds, the chemistry of the water in contact with the glass, or circulation of this water through the repository) that can influence the temperature dependence of aqueous reactions. In this study, some standard leach tests using pure water, in continuous flow and direct sampling autoclaves, were performed on a synthetic medieval glass. Archaeological glass samples of a similar composition and which had suffered several centuries of corrosion in damp soil had been the subject of previous studies. The corrosion of the archaeological samples in damp soil was well understood and the aim was to determine how well standard leach tests would predict the observed corrosion.