Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 273 (2000) 145149

www.elsevier.com/locate/jnoncrysol

Properties of porous silica glasses prepared via solgel process

Ana Maria M. Santos a,*, Wander L. Vasconcelos b
a
b

Center of Nuclear Technology Development/CNEN, Rua M

ario Werneck s/n-Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, MG, CEP-31120-970 Brazil
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, UFMG, Rua Esprito Santo, 35 Belo Horizonte, MG, CEP-30160-030 Brazil

Abstract
Porous silica glasses were obtained through solgel processing employing tetramethylorthosilicate (TMOS) as precursor, with HNO3 and HF as catalysts. The gels were heat-treated at temperatures ranging from 400C to 900C. Some
gels were c-ray irradiated. Specic surface areas, pore size distributions and solid densities of the gels were obtained by
nitrogen sorption and mercury pycnometry. Pore morphology was inferred through curves of nitrogen sorption hysteresis, and an evaluation of pore connectivities and permeabilities were carried out. The shape of the isotherms of gels
submitted to dierent heat treatments was attributed to pores of cylindrical shape. The average pore size was controlled
by the HF concentration. The average pore size distribution of gels irradiated with c-rays decreased. We measured the
properties of porous glasses when immersed in aqueous solution containing cesium chloride. Porous silica glasses heattreated at temperatures above 650C did not fracture when immersed in aqueous solutions with CsCl. 2000 Elsevier
Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PACS: 81.05.Rm; 81.20.FW; 81.05.Kf

1. Introduction
The solgel technique oers several processing
advantages over many material production methods, mainly due to purity, homogeneity and
modications of material properties by changing
fabrication parameters [1,2]. The mean pore size,
the interconnectivity and the pore size distributions can be controlled by changing the molar
ratio water/precursor, type of catalyst, type of
precursor, temperatures of gelation, drying, and
stabilization [13].
An important application of solgel processing
is using solgel derived porous glass as a matrix for

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +55-31 499 3235; fax: +55-31
499 3390.
E-mail address: amms@urano.cdtu.br (A.M.M. Santos).

nuclear waste immobilization, where the interconnected porosity is impregnated with a radioactive solution. The solution percolates into the
porous glass making it possible to obtain a solid
glass waste form without melting the radioactive
glass. Some ssion products such as cesium are
volatile at temperatures much less than that required to melt the glass [4], which is a major disadvantage for the conventional fusion processing.
After lling the pores, with aqueous solution
containing dissolved waste materials, the glass can
be heated to evaporate the solvent and to decompose the radioactive dopants forming oxides.
Further heating to higher temperatures transforms
the porous matrix into a solid glass in which the
radioactive material is immobilized. Other uses of
porous materials are in areas such as catalysis
[1,2], chemical separation [2,5] and solid state dye
lasers production [1,5].

0022-3093/00/$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 2 2 - 3 0 9 3 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 2 6 - 5

146

A.M.M. Santos, W.L. Vasconcelos / Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 273 (2000) 145149

In this paper, we present the synthesis of porous

silica glasses through solgel process employing
tetramethylorthosilicate (TMOS) as precursor, the
measurement of the structural properties of these
glasses and an evaluation of the eect of c-irradiation on gels heat-treated at 700C. To explore the
potential of porous glasses obtained using solgel
process as matrix for nuclear waste immobilization, we evaluated the changes of porous glasses
when immersed into aqueous solution with cesium
chloride.
2. Experimental
The porous silica gels were obtained through
solgel process, by hydrolysis and condensation of
TMOS [6]. The synthesis was performed at room
temperature and under atmospheric pressure using
nitric acid (HNO3 Merck) and hydrouoric acid
(HF Merck) as catalysts. The following parameters were used: HF concentrations of 0.25 and
0.32 vol.% (volume of the casting solution); HNO3
concentration of 0.82 vol.%; pH of 1.5 and H2 O/
TMOS molar ratio equal 16. Gels obtained with
0.25 and 0.32 vol.% of HF were identied as GS 01
and GS 02, respectively.
The nal solutions were cast into cylindrical
containers and gelled at room temperature. The
aging and drying of the gels were carried out, respectively, at 60C and 105C, during 48 h, using
an open to air oven. The gels were heat-treated at
400C, 500C, 600C, 650C, 700C, 800C and
900C, in an open to air oven. Some gels were
impregnated and irradiated. In the impregnation
tests, porous gels (13 mm diameter  14 mm
height) were dipped into aqueous solution with
cesium chloride (CsCl Aldrich) with concentrations of 3 and 27 g/l and heat-treated at 500C and
800C. In the radiation tests, gels were irradiated
with 60 Co (gammacell 220) to an absorbed dose of
8:4  103 Gy.
Pore morphology, pore size distribution, and
specic surface area were measured by nitrogen
sorption (Autosorb-1, Quantachrome and Specic
Surface Automatic System SASE [7]). The average pore diameter was determined from solid
densities measured by mercury pycnometry and

specic surface area [6]. The true density was assumed to be 2.2 g/cm3 and the pore shape cylindrical.
The cesium contents were measured by atomic
absorption technique (PerkinElmer model 5000).

3. Results
3.1. Porous glass properties
The porous solgel silica samples obtained after
drying and partial sintering remained unbroken
and without visual inhomogeneities. Fig. 1 shows
results of specic surface area and Fig. 2 shows the
porosity of gels as a function of sintering temperature.
Fig. 3 illustrates the average pore diameter as a
function of heat treatment temperature. Based on
a theoretical model [3,810] and experimental data
[6,10] measurements of pore connectivities were
carried out for gels heat-treated at temperatures
ranging from 400C to 900C. The pore connectivities were in the range from 1:0  1017 to
2:5  1017 cm3 . Pore permeabilities were obtained
using theoretical modeling [6,11]. The permeabilities were in the range from 1:6  1017 to
3:2  1017 m2 .

Fig. 1. Specic surface area as a function of heat treatment

temperature.

A.M.M. Santos, W.L. Vasconcelos / Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 273 (2000) 145149

147

The adsorptiondesorption isotherms for gels in

the temperature range studied here showed no
shape modication and the pore morphology was
assumed cylindrical, which could be inferred from
the isotherms using de Boer's model [12]. Fig. 4
presents a typical result of pore size distribution
for gels heat-treated at 700C, c-irradiated, and
non-irradiated.
3.2. Immersion tests

Fig. 2. Porosity as a function of heat treatment temperature.

Fig. 3. Pore diameter as a function of heat treatment temperature.

Porous gels heat-treated at temperatures ranging from 400C to 900C were immersed in aqueous solutions with cesium chloride (Table 1) at
room temperature. Porous gels heat-treated at
650C, 700C, 800C and 900C remained unbroken when immersed into the solution even after
168 h of impregnation. The time observed for solution penetration into the pore structure was
longer for gels heat-treated at 900C 29  1 h)
when compared with gels heat-treated at 650C
(25  1 h, both impregnated in solution with 3 g/l
of CsCl.
Porous glasses heat-treated at 700C were chosen for impregnation tests at 35C. After impregnation, the gels were heat-treated at 500C and
800C. Tables 1 and 2 show the results of cesium
contents. The values of the `nal content' in Table 1
Table 1
Cesium contents in aqueous solutions
Impregnation
time
40 h
163 h

Initial content
(g/l)

Final content
(g/l)

3
27
3
27

75 10
65 10
330 50
325 50

Table 2
Cesium contents in gels impregnated and heat treated

Fig. 4. Pore size distributions for gels treated at 700C and

c-irradiated and non-irradiated.

Cs in impregnation
solution (g/l)

Cesium (wt%)
200C

500C

800C

0.014
0.052
0.077
0.083

1.3 0.1
5.9 0.6
10.4 1
9.9 1

6.1 0.6

13.1 1.3

1.0 0.1
2.6 0.3

9.1 0.9

148

A.M.M. Santos, W.L. Vasconcelos / Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 273 (2000) 145149

are higher than the `initial content' due to water

evaporation.

4. Discussion
The specic surface, pore diameter and pore
morphology data are similar to those reported in
[2,10]. We observed that the porous glasses can be
heated until 700C without altering the pore diameter, connectivity or permeability. Alterations
on the specic surface, connectivity, permeability
and sorptiondesorption isotherms due to c-irradiation in gels heat-treated at 700C were observed.
We noted in Figs. 4 and 2 that the c-irradiation
shifts the curve of pore size distribution towards
smaller sizes and decreases the volume fraction of
pores, which we suggest is due to densication of
the gel.
Glass waste undergoes dimensional changes
under irradiation showing swelling or densication
[13,14]. Densication, in vitreous silica, is explained by the linkage of two siliconoxygen tetrahedra, in which normal bond angle is 143
which decreases on excitation and can be quenched in that state [13]. Densication of silica
glasses and borosilicate glasses due to c-irradiation
has been reported [15]. Ewing et al. [14] reported
1% densication in commercial borosilicate
glasses after c-irradiation to 1010 rad, which is
comparable to the densication observed in other
actinide-doped glass [14]. The magnitude of the
volume changes in waste glass is not a problem for
the safe storage of nuclear waste, but changes in
the structure of the glass may aect the integrity of
the glass [13] and consequently the radioactive
release rates [13,16], which are proportional to the
surface area in contact with water [13,17].
The sorptiondesorption isotherms corresponded to type IV [12] with closeness of the desorption isotherm to the adsorption isotherm
indicating the occurrence of cylindrical pores,
which was also observed by Vasconcelos [10]. As
expected from solgel process, a uniform pore size
distribution is inferred due to the absence of
abrupt variations in the sorptiondesorption
isotherm.

Gel samples heat-treated at temperatures

<650C cracked and we assume that it was due to
stress produced on the pore wall lled with liquid
when they were immersed into aqueous solutions.
For gel samples heat-treated at 700C, we observed no eect of volume fraction of pores on the
transport of aqueous solution. For gels heattreated at 900C the pore size restricted transport
of solution. From the results shown in Table 1, the
amount of cesium incorporated was independent
of the dwell time (impregnation time). It can be
seen from Table 2, that the cesium volatilization
occurred between 500C and 800C. The cesium
volatilization was observed in silica glasses at
about 780C [6].

5. Conclusion
The results demonstrate the feasibility of obtaining porous silica glasses with controlled porosity through changing the HF concentration. It
was possible to measure specic surface areas,
mean pore diameters, pore size distributions, and
pore connectivities and to evaluate pore permeabilities. We investigated the potentiality of these
gels as host material for immobilization of liquid
radioactive waste. Porous glasses soak aqueous
solution with cesium at rates that depends on pore
diameters. The integrity of glass remains after
impregnation test for gels heat-treated at temperatures higher than 650C.

Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful for the nancial support provided by CNPq and FAPEMIG.

References
[1] L.L. Hench, Solgel Silica, Noyes, New Jersey, 1998.
[2] C.J. Brinker, G.W. Scherer, Solgel Science: the Physics
and Chemistry of Solgel Processing, Harcourt Brace, San
Diego, 1990.
[3] L.L. Hench, W.L. Vasconcelos, Ann. Rev. Mater. Sci. 20
(1990) 269.

A.M.M. Santos, W.L. Vasconcelos / Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 273 (2000) 145149
[4] J.A. Debbio, Removal of cesium from a high-level calcined
waste by high temperature volatilization, INEL-94/0028,
1994.
[5] D.R. Uhlmann, J. Solgel Sci. Technol. 8 (1997) 1083.
[6] A.M.M. Santos, PhD thesis, Federal University of Minas
Gerais, 1998, in Portuguese.
[7] R.A.N. Ferreira, O. Miranda, S.C. Reis, T.R. Mansur,
D.A. Alencar, J.L. Terra, F.S. Lameiras, Cer^
amica 36
(1990) 139.
[8] R.T. DeHo, F.N. Rhines, Quantitative Microscopy,
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1968.
[9] W.L. Vasconcelos, R.T. DeHo, L.L. Hench, J. NonCryst. Solids 121 (1990) 124.

149

[10] W.L. Vasconcelos, PhD thesis, University of Florida, 1989.

[11] J.S. Reed, Introduction to the Principles of Ceramic
Processing, Wiley, New York, 1988.
[12] F.A.L. Dullien, Porous Media Fluid Transport and Pore
Structure, 2nd Ed., Academic Press, New York, 1991.
[13] W. Primak, Nucl. Technol. 60 (1983) 199.
[14] R.C. Ewing, W.J. Weber, F.W. Clinard, Prog. Nucl.
Energy 29 (1995) 63.
[15] J.E. Shelby, J. Appl. Phys. 51 (1980) 2561.
[16] W.J. Weber, Nucl. Technol. 60 (1983) 178.
[17] J.W. Shade, D.M. Strachan, Am. Ceram. Bull. 65 (1986)
1568.