Study Of Surface Changes On Industrial Glasses With Afm, Fe-Sem, Edx, Snms And Lm - Part 1. Glass Skin And Corrosion

By combining different analytical techniques, including modern high resolution imaging tools such as field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), new phenomena in the surface, near surface and bulk structure of various industrial glasses have been discovered. Investigations of soda-lime-silica container glass and lead silicate glass tubings exposed to atmospheric and to dried air are presented. The results of the first part of this paper can be explained with an SiO2-rich skin on the glass, which can protect the glass against the attack of external media.