Determination of the water content of alkali lime silica glasses by IR spectroscopy using nuclear reaction analysis for calibration

Abstract

Systematic IR and NRA investigations were performed for two series of glasses with very different water contents. The glasses had the composition (in mol%): 16 R₂O · 10 CaO · 74 SiO₂ (R = sodium, potassium). The IR absorption coefTicients of the OH bands were found to be linearly correlated with the total hydrogen content obtained by the NRA measurements. Using the hydrogen concentration values from NRA, the total water contents were calculated and so-called practical IR extinction coefTicients were deduced. The values found for the soda-lime-silica glasses are 381 · mol¯¹ · cm¯¹ for the band at 3550cm¯¹ and 561 · mol¯¹ · cm¯¹ for the band at 2800cm¯¹. The values for the potassium-lime-silica glasses are 231 · mol¯¹ · cm¯¹ for the band at 3550 cm¯¹ and 78 l · mol¯¹ · cm¯¹ for the band at 2800 cm¯¹ Also, Scholze's two-band method was applied, resulting in good agreement between the water contents of the glasses derived from the IR and the NRA measurements.