Adsorption properties and surface reactivity of commercial soda-lime-silica float glasses with different surface tin concentrations were examined. Both amounts of adsorbed organic substances from the atmosphere and bonded silane coupling reagents following chemical modification were shown to depend quantitatively on the surface tin concentrations. Concentration depth profiles of tin, measured by XPS in the near surface region, have shown that the tin concentration in the first few nanometers at the surface is extremely high compared to that deeper into the bulk. Furthermore, it has been shown through heat treatment of glass containing tin oxide as a bulk component, that the surface tin enrichment arises from the migration of Sn2+ towards the surface during the annealing lehr process.
