Study Of The Chemical Durability And Hazardous Ionic Leaching Of(Soda-Lime) Glas

Abstract

Huge amounts of glass materials being applied in medical, pharmaceuticaland chemical aqueous solutions; this requires the study of chemical stability of glass at the exposed surfaces with these solutions where the leaching takes place. The leaching of the glass ions will transport these ions to the solutions stored in the glass containers; leading to changes in the chemical composition in the order of part per million that causes hazardous effect with time. The present work investigates the leaching chemical properties of the soda-lime Iraqi glass containers. The effect of the pH of contact solution andannealing of glass on leaching rates is studied. Ionic leaching shows lower rate with PH of the solutions at the ‘safe zone’: (6>PH>8.5). Annealing increases the leaching rates and reduces of the chemical durability of glass. Increasing annealing time led to further increase the leaching rate. In addition, the increase in the exposed surface area also increases leaching rates.