Solid-State NMR Examination of Alteration Layers on a Nuclear Waste Glasses

Solid-state NMR is a powerful tool for probing the role and significance of alteration layers in determining the kinetics for the corrosion of nuclear waste glass. NMR methods are used to probe the chemical structure of the alteration layers to elucidate information about their chemical complexity, leading to increased insight into the mechanism of altered layer formation. Two glass compositions were examined in this study: a glass preliminarily designed for nuclear waste immobilization (called AFCI) and a simplified version of this AFCI glass (which we call SA1R). Powdered glasses with controlled and known particles sizes were corroded at 90 °C for periods of one and five months with a surface-area to solution-volume ratio of 100,000 m-1. 1H-29Si CP-CPMG MAS NMR, 1H-27Al CP-MAS NMR, 1H-11B CP-MAS NMR, and 1H-23Na CP-MAS NMR experiments provide isolated structural information about the alteration layers, which differ in structure from that of the pristine glass. Both glasses studied here develop alteration layers composed primarily of [IV]Si species. Aluminum is also retained in the alteration layers, perhaps facilitated by the observed increase in coordination from [IV]Al to [VI]Al, which correlates with a loss of charge balancing cations. 1H-11B CP-MAS NMR observations indicated a retention of boron in hydrated glass layers, which has not been characterized by previous work. For the AFCI glass, secondary phase formation begins during the corrosion times considered here, and these neophases are detected within the alteration layers. We identify precursor phases as crystalline sodium metasilicates. An important finding is that layer thickness depends on the length of the initial alteration stages and varies only with respect to silicon species during the residual rate regime