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- EBSD (3)
- Foaming (3)
- Glass matrix composites (3)
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Organisationseinheit der BAM
To explore the impact of ambient and structural water on static fatigue, the initiation and growth of 3279 Vickers induced median radial cracks were automatically recorded and analyzed. We find that humidity is more efficient in initiating cracks and promoting their growth than water, which is dissolved in the glass structure. In particular for slow crack growth (< 3x10-6 m s-1), tests in dry nitrogen showed a considerable decrease in the crack growth exponent with increasing water content of the glasses. On the other hand, if tests were performed in humid air, the crack growth exponent was independent of the water content of the hydrous glasses, while stress intensity decreased slightly. These observations indicate that water promotes the processes at the crack-tip regardless of its origin. However, ambient water is more efficient.
Stable crack growth was measured for nominal dry and water-bearing (6 wt%) soda-lime silicate glasses in double cantilever beam geometry and combined with DMA studies on the effects of dissolved water on internal friction and glass transition, respectively. In vacuum, a decreased slope of logarithmic crack growth velocity versus stress intensity factor is evident for the hydrous glass in line with an increase of b-relaxation intensity indicating more energy Dissipation during fracture. Further, inert crack growth in hydrous glass is found to be divided into sections of different slope, which indicates different water related crack propagation mechanism. In ambient air, a largely extended region II is observed for the hydrous glass, which indicates that crack growth is more sensitive to ambient water.
We measured and collected literature data for the crystal growth rate, u(T), of µ-cordierite (2MgO · 2Al2O3 · 5SiO2) and diopside (CaO · MgO · 2SiO2) in their isochemical glass forming melts. The data cover exceptionally wide temperature ranges, i.e. 8001350 °C for cordierite and 7501378 °C for diopside. The maximum of u(T) occurs at about 1250 °C for both systems. A smooth shoulder is observed around 970 °C for µ-cordierite. Based on measured and collected viscosity data, we fitted u(T) using standard crystal growth models. For diopside, the experimental u(T) fits well to the 2D surface nucleation model and also to the screw dislocation growth mechanism. However, the screw dislocation model yields parameters of more significant physical meaning. For cordierite, these two models also describe the experimental growth rates. However, the best fittings of u(T) including the observed shoulder, were attained for a combined mechanism, assuming that the melt/crystal interface growing from screw dislocations is additionally roughened by superimposed 2D surface nucleation at large undercoolings, starting at a temperature around the shoulder. The good fittings indicate that viscosity can be used to assess the transport mechanism that determines crystal growth in these two systems, from the melting point Tm down to about Tg, with no sign of a breakdown of the StokesEinstein/Eyring equation.
Crystallization behavior in different atmospheres (air, Ar, and 7% H2/Ar) of lithium iron phosphate glass (33Li2O33Fe2O31Nb2O5–33P2O5 (LFNP)) powders with different sizes of 2–1000 µm was examined. The crystallization peak temperature (Tp) in Ar and 7% H2/Ar decreased with decreasing the particle size of glass powders, but the value of Tp in air was independent of particle size. The crystallized glass obtained by heating to Tp showed the formation of the α-Li3Fe2(PO4)3 and LiFePO4 crystalline phases. Fe2O3 crystals were formed only in the inside of crystallized glass plates in the heating in air. The crystallization of LiFePO4 was largely enhanced in the particle size of <2 µm during the heating in Ar and 7% H2/Ar atmospheres. The main crystallization mechanism in LFNP glass was found to be surface crystallization. Significant shrinkages were observed for glass compacts (pellets) in the heating in 7% H2/Ar. These results suggest that controlling particle sizes and atmospheres enables the design the morphology of LiFePO4 crystals in LFNP glass.
The effect of structural water on density, elastic constants and microhardness of water-bearing soda-lime-silica glasses of up to 21.5 mol% total water is studied. It is found that the Poisson ratio and the water content are positively correlated, while density and the elastic moduli decrease with increasing water content. Vickers hardness decreases by approximately 27% from the dry to the most hydrous glass. For water fractions <3 mol%, the dependencies are non-linear reflecting the non-linear change in the concentrations of OH and H2O molecules dissolved, whereas for water fractions >3 mol% linear dependencies are found. To distinguish the effect of structural water and environmental water, indentations were performed in toluene, nitrogen gas and air. Timedependent softening was evident for testing dry glasses in humid atmospheres as well as for tests of hydrous glasses in dry atmospheres. This indicates that the response times of dissolved water species are effectively equal in both scenarios.
The sintering of Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics prepared from alumoborosilicate
glass- and Al2O3 powders of similar small particle size was studied by dilatometry, heating microscopy,
microstructure analysis, glass- and effective viscosity measurements. The steric effect of
Al3O3 inclusions was studied using a gnon-reactiveh model composite. With increasing Al3O3 volume
fraction (Φ ≤ 0.45), sintering decelerates and its final stage shifts to higher temperature. The
attainable shrinkage is reduced as Al2O3 particle clusters bearing residual pores become more frequent.
The kinetics of sintering could be described formally superposing the weighed contributions
of differentially sized and randomly composed glass-crystal particle clusters and assuming a sintering
rate controlled by the effective matrix viscosity, which increases with Φ and with progressive
wetting of Al2O3 particles during densification. The "reactive" model composite shows significant
dissolution of Al2O3 into the glass, which has two opposed effects on sintering: reducing Φ and increasing
glass viscosity. For the present case (Φ = 0.25), the latter effect dominates and sintering is
retarded by Al2O3 dissolution. Crystallization of wollastonite starts after full densification. Dissolution
of Al2O3 was found to promote the subsequent growth of anorthite.
Barium silicate glass powders 4 h milled in CO2 and Ar and sintered in air are studied with microscopy, total carbon analysis, differential thermal Analysis (DTA), vacuum hot extraction mass spectroscopy (VHE-MS), Fourier-transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). Intensive foaming of powder compacts is evident, and VHE studies prove that foaming is predominantly caused by carbonaceous species for both milling gases. DTA Shows that the decomposition of BaCO3 particles mix-milled with glass powders occurs at similar temperatures as foaming of compacts. However, no carbonate at the glass surface could be detected by FTIR spectroscopy, XPS, and TOF-SIMS after heating to the temperature of sintering. Instead, CO2 molecules unable to rotate identified by FTIR spectroscopy after milling, probably trapped by mechanical dissolution into the glass bulk. Such a mechanism or microencapsulation in cracks and particle aggregates can explain the contribution of Ar to foaming after intense milling in Ar atmosphere. The amount of CO2 molecules and Ar, however, cannot fully explain the extent of foaming. Carbonates mechanically dissolved beneath the surface or encapsulated in cracks and micropores of particle aggregates are therefore probably the major foaming source.
Hydrogen gas diffusivity of fourteen glasses of the Na2O-Al2O3-SiO2 system are studied along the joins quartzalbite-jadeite-nepheline (Qz-Ab-Jd-Np, fully polymerized) and albite-sodium disilicate (Ab-Ds, depolymerized).
Density measurements show that ionic porosity decreases from 54.4% (Qz) to 51.5% (Np) and from 52.4% (Ab) to 50.2% (Ds). Hydrogen diffusivity D follows similar trends but at another scale. D at 523 K decreases from 4×10−12 to 3×10−14m2 s−1 (Qz-Np) and from 4×10−13 to 3×10−15m2 s−1 (Ab-Ds). Charge compensating Na+ acting as a filling agent in fully polymerized network structures leads to up to one order of Magnitude higher diffusivities as depolymerized glass structures of the same SiO2 content where Na+ takes the role of a
modifier ion. Temperature dependence of the diffusivity indicates that both the activation energy involved with the moving H2 molecule as well as the accessible volume in the structure contribute to this compositional trend.
The permeation of hydrogen gas was studied in meta-aluminous (tectosilicate) glass powders of Li2O×Al2O3×SiO2 (LAS), Na2O×Al2O3×SiO2 (NAS) and MgO×Al2O3×SiO2 (MAS) systems by pressure loading and vacuum extraction in the temperatures range 210–310 °C. With this method, both the solubility S and the diffusivity D were determined, while the permeability was given by the product SD. For all glasses, S was found to decrease with temperature, while D increased. Since the activation energy of diffusion of H2 molecules exceeded that of dissolution, permeation increased slightly with temperature. When extrapolated to standard conditions (25 °C), the permeability of tectosilicate glasses was found to be only 10-22–10-24 mol H2 (m s Pa)-1, which is 8–10 magnitudes lower than most polymers. Thin glass liners of these compositions are expected to be the most effective barrier for tanks of pressurised hydrogen.
Physical storage of gaseous hydrogen under high-pressure in glassy micro-containers such as spheres and capillaries is a promising concept for enhancing safety and the volumetric capacity of mobile hydrogen storage systems. As very low permeation through the container wall is required for storage of compressed hydrogen, development of glasses of minimal hydrogen permeability is needed. For this purpose, one has to understand better the dependence of hydrogen permeability on glass structure. The paper points out that minimizing the accessible free volume is as one strategy to minimize hydrogen permeability. Based on previously measured and comprehensive literature data, it is shown that permeation is independently controlled by ionic porosity and network modifier content. Thus, ionic porosity in modified and fully polymerized networks can be decreased equally to the lowest hydrogen permeability among the glasses under study. Applying this concept, a drop of up to 30,000 with respect to the permeation of hydrogen molecules through silica glass is attainable.
The internal friction of hydrated soda-lime-silica glasses with total water content (CW ) up to 1.9 wt. % was studied by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) using temperature-frequency sweeps from 723 K to 273 K and from 1 s-1 to 50 s-1. Total water content and concentrations of H2O molecules (CH2O ) and OH groups (COH) in the DMA specimens were determined by infrared spectroscopy. For low water contents (CW ≈ COH < 0.25 wt. %) two discrete internal friction peaks below the glass transition (α relaxation) were assigned to the low-temperature motion of alkali ions (γ relaxation) and cooperative movements of dissimilar mobile species under participation of OH at higher temperature (βOH relaxation). For large water contents (CW > 1 wt. %), where significant amounts of molecular water are evident (CH2O > 0.15 wt. %), however, internal friction spectra change unexpectedly: the βOH peak heights saturate and a low temperature shoulder appears on the β-relaxation peak. This emerging relaxation mode (βH2O relaxation) was assigned to the motions of H2O molecules. βH2O relaxation was found to be faster than βOH but slower than γ relaxation. Activation energy of the different relaxation modes increased in the order γ < βH2O < βOH < α.
We present an easy-to-apply method to predict structural trends in the internal nucleation tendency of oxide glasses. The approach is based on calculated crystal fracture surface energies derived from easily accessible diatomic bond energy and crystal lattice data. The applicability of the method is demonstrated on literature nucleation data for isochemically crystallizing oxide glasses.
The effect of hydration on the kinetic fragility of soda-lime-silica glasses was investigated by viscometry in the glass transition range. Water-bearing glasses were prepared from industrial float glass (FG) and a ternary model glass (NCS = 16Na2O 10CaO 74SiO2 in mol%) by bubbling steam through the melt at 1480 °C and up to 7 bar. Additionally, a sodium borosilicate glass (NBS = 16Na2O 10B2O3 74SiO2 in mol%) was hydrated under equal conditions. As detected by infrared spectroscopy water dissolves in the glasses exclusively as OH-groups. The hydration resulted in a total water content CW up to ~ 0.2 wt% for FG, NCS and NBS glasses. Kinetic fragility, expressed by the steepness index m, was determined from the temperature dependence of η at the glass transition. Viscosity data from previous studies on hydrous float glasses (CW > 1 wt%) were surveyed together with literature data on the (H2O)Na2OCaOSiO2, (H2O)Na2OSiO2 and (H2O)SiO2 systems to expand the range of water concentration and bulk composition. We could demonstrate that m decreases for all glasses although water is dissolved as OH and should depolymerize the network. An empirical equation of the general type m = a - b logCW where a, b are fitting parameters, enables m to be predicted, for each glass series as function of the water content CW. The enlarged data base shows that the parameter B of the Arrhenius viscosity-temperature relation decreases much stronger than the isokom temperature at the glass transition.
We studied sintering of LTCC-type glass matrix composites (GMCs) consisting of small glass and alumina particles of equal size. Primarily, crystals act as rigid inclusions, decelerating the densification rate. In later stages, they also dissolve, partially increasing the viscosity. Release of alumina finally induces crystallization of alumosilicates, which enables post-firing stability. To study both effects, two model GMCs were prepared: an α-Al2O3 + barium alumoborosilicate glass (BABS)GMC, which shows neither significant dissolution nor crystallization, and an α-Al2O3 + calcium alumoborosilicate glass (CABS)GMC, which dissolves readily and promotes crystallization. The kinetics of shrinkage for both GMC were modeled by utilizing Frenkel theory for the early stage and MackenzieShuttleworth theory for the late stage, assuming that sintering is superimposed by the weighted contributions of triparticle glasscrystal clusters, their random occurrence (ideal mixing), and a shrinkage rate controlled by the GMC effective viscosity. In agreement with modeling, the experimental results showed that the shrinkage rate of BABSGMC decreases progressively for crystal volume fractions Φ > 0.15. The attainable shrinkage is reduced by up to 8% for Φ = 0.45. For the CABSGMC with Φ = 0.25, a reduction of Φ to 0.20 was evident due to partial α-Al2O3 dissolution. This effect was found able to increase the sintering temperature by ~5060 K.
The crystallization of 11BaO-25CaO-64SiO2 mol% glass powders and related effects of glass powder milling have been studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), light and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and differential thermal analysis (DTA). Glass powders were made by ZrO2 crushing with subsequent sieving or sedimentation or alternatively made by milling with agate, corundum and tungsten carbide. Although surface crystallization was detectable during late sintering, all powders fully sintered. Wollastonite was found as primary crystal phase followed by cristobalite and sanbornite precipitation. The latter crystallization steps caused a second DTA-peak for fine powders. DTA-peak temperatures shifted to lower temperature with decreasing particle size in any case. No significant effects of milling materials on DTA-peak temperatures were evident. As an exception, however, milling in agate caused strongly decreased temperatures of the second DTA-peak. This observation can be explained by the progressive mechanical damaging, which results from the required prolonged milling time with agate due to its small materials density, and the fact that diamond made scratches did promote surface crystallization of cristobalite. The present study thus shows that even for glass powders with excellent sinterability, milling can affect microstructure evolution.
A glass of the composition 37BaO·16CaO·47SiO2 wt% produced on an industrial scale is crystallized at 970 °C for times ranging from 15 min to 2 h. The crystallization at the immediate surface as well as the crystal growth into the bulk are analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) including energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) as well as X-ray diffraction in the Θ–2Θ setup (XRD). The immediate surface shows the oriented nucleation of walstromite as well as the formation of wollastonite and an unknown phase of the composition BaCaSi3O8. All three phases also grow into the bulk where walstromite ultimately dominates the kinetic selection and grows throughout the bulk due to a lack of bulk nucleation. Walstromite shows systematic orientation changes as well as twinning during growth. A critical analysis of the XRD-patterns acquired from various crystallized samples indicates that their evaluation is problematic and that phases detected by XRD in this system should be verified by another method such as EDXS.
Oriented surface crystallization on polished diopside glass surfaces has been studied with scanning electron microscopy, electron backscatter diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and laser scanning microscopy.
An orientation preference of [001] parallel to the glass surface was detected for separately growing diopside crystals even as small as 700 nm in size. This finding shows that crystal orientation occurs in the outermost surface layer without crystal-crystal interaction and indicates that the crystal orientation is a result of oriented nucleation. Depending on surface preparation, monomodal crystal orientation distributions with [100] perpendicular to the surface or bimodal distributions with [100] and [010] perpendicular to the glass Surface were detected. It was also shown that the degree of crystal orientation increases with decreasing Surface roughness. The observed orientation of diopside crystals could be explained in terms of the interfacial energies of different crystal faces.
Green compacts of ceramics, glass ceramic composites and sinter glass ceramics contain
different amounts of organic materials added as pressing aids or binders. Before sintering, these
organics have to burn out completely. In oxidising atmospheres, the debindering process is mostly
exothermic and therefore difficult to control. This uncontrolled heat production due to locally enhanced
debindering and respective gas release may cause damages in the green compact microstructure.
Therefore, debindering is usually operated with very low heating rates (< 3 K/min) which requires
long processing times of many hours. In this paper, we will show that it is possible to reduce
the processing time for debindering dramatically by using the decomposition rate of the organic
binder, detected by the weight loss of the sample, as a control factor of the furnace.
Sample preparation for analytical scanning electron microscopy using initial notch sectioning
(2021)
A novel method for broad ion beam based sample sectioning using the concept of initial notches is presented. An adapted sample geometry is utilized in order to create terraces with a well-define d step in erosion depth from the surface. The method consists of milling a notch into the surface, followed by glancing-angle ion beam erosion, which leads to preferential erosion at the notch due to increased local surface elevation. The process of terrace formation can be utilized in sample preparation for analytical scanning electron microscopy in order to get efficient access to the depth-dependent microstructure of a material. It is demonstrated that the method can be applied to both conducting and non-conducting specimens. Furthermore, experimental parameters influencing the preparation success are determined. Finally, as a proof-of-concept, an electron backscatter diffraction study on a surface crystallized diopside glass ceramic is performed, where the method is used to analyze orientation dependent crystal growth phenomena occurring during growth of surface crystals into the bulk.
Sintering and foaming of barium and calcium silicate glass powder compacts have been studied for different powder milling. Sintering was measured by means of heating microscopy backed up by XRD, DTA, Vacuum Hot Extraction (VHE) and electron microscopy. Foaming intensity strongly increased with decreasing glass partiefe size. Although powder compacts were uniaxially pressed and sintered in ambient air, foaming was affected by the milling atmosphere and most intensive for milfing in C02. Conformingly, VHE studies revealed that foaming of fully sintered samples was mainly driven by C02, even for powders milled in technical air, Ar and N2. Prolonged storage of air milled barium silicate glass powders in ambient air before pressing and sintering caused further increase of foaming intensity. These findings indicate that carbonaceous species are preferentially trapped to or close beneath the powder surface during milling and later storage. The temperature range of C02 degassing from fully sintered barium and calcium silicate g/ass powder compacts fits the temperature ranges of decomposition of BaC03 and CaC03 mix-milled with the respective barium and calcium silicate glass powders.
The manufacture of sintered glasses and glass-ceramics, glass matrix composites, and glass-bounded ceramics or pastes is often affected by gas bubble formation. Against this background, we studied sintering and foaming of barium silicate glass powders used as SOFC sealants using different powder milling procedures. Sintering was measured by means of heating microscopy backed up by XPD, differential thermal analysis, vacuum hot extraction (VHE), and optical and electron microscopy. Foaming increased significantly as milling progressed. For moderately milled glass powders, subsequent storage in air could also promote foaming. Although the powder compacts were uniaxially pressed and sintered in air, the milling atmosphere significantly affected foaming. The strength of this effect increased in the order Ar ≈ N2 < air < CO2. Conformingly, VHE studies revealed that the pores of foamed samples predominantly encapsulated CO2, even for powders milled in Ar and N2. Results of this study thus indicate that foaming is caused by carbonaceous species trapped on the glass powder surface. Foaming could be substantially reduced by milling in water and 10 wt% HCl.
We report the sintering of 3D-printed composites of 13-93 bioactive glass and hydroxyapatite (HAp) powders. The sintering process is characterized on conventionally produced powder compacts with varying HAp content. A numeric approximation of the densification kinetics is then obtained on the basis of Frenkel, MackenzieShuttleworth, and EinsteinRoscoe models, and optimized sintering conditions for 3D-printed structures are derived. Fully isotropic sintering of complex cellular composites is obtained by continuous heating to 750°C at a rate of 2 K/min for a HAp content of 40 wt%. The approach can readily be generalized for printing and sintering of similar glass-ceramic composites.
Sintering of LTCC
(2008)
Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic materials (LTCC) have attracted growing interest in recent years since they are promising candidates for highly integrated ceramic packaging. This paper surveys materials concepts of related glass ceramic composites (GCC) and discusses unsolved problems and challenges. The densification of GCC based on "viscous sintering" may be affected by steric effects and partial dissolution of dispersed crystal particles, crystallization and phase boundary reactions.
Borosilicate glasses (16Na2O–10B2O3–74SiO2, NBS) with water contents up to 22 mol% H2O were prepared to study the effect of water on structural relaxation using DTA, viscometry and internal friction measurements. The results show that the glass transition temperature Tg of DTA and the isokom temperature T12, of viscometry are in excellent agreement, confirming the equivalence of enthalpy and viscous relaxation for NBS glass. Combining Tg data with water speciation data demonstrates that OH groups are mainly responsible for the decrease of Tg with increasing hydration, while molecular water plays only a minor role. Internal friction spectra at 7.125 Hz confirm the decisive influence of water on mechanical relaxation. The temperature range of α-relaxation (glass transition) strongly decreases while two β-relaxation peaks (sub-Tg) progressively appear with increasing water content. A high temperature β-relaxation peak, attributed to the presence of OH groups, shifts from 670 to 450 K as total water content increases from 0.01 to 5 wt%. A low temperature β-relaxation peak, attributed to molecular water, appears at 380 K and 330 K in glasses containing 3 and 5 wt% H2O, respectively. These findings suggest that relaxation mechanism of different hydrous species at low temperature may contribute to fatigue of stressed glasses.
The crystallization behavior of sodium ion conductive Na2MnP2O7 glass was examined to clarify the crystallization mechanism. The formation of thermodynamically metastable phase, layered Na2MnP2O7, at the surface of the glass occurred. Heat treatment at 430 °C for 3 h lead to surface crystals of Na2MnP2O7 oriented with the (101) direction perpendicular to the sample surface. As the heat treatment temperature increased, the glass-ceramic samples deformed, and the presence numerous micro bubbles due to dissolved water was detected.
The effect of elastic stress and relaxation on crystal nucleation in lithium disilicate glass
(2004)
In the framework of a general theoretical approach recently developed, the effect of elastic stresses on the rate of nucleation of crystallites of critical sizes in the process of crystallization of lithium disilicate glasses is studied. Hereby both the evolution of elastic stresses due to changes in the specific volume of the crystallizing system (i.e., differences in the densities of the melt and the crystal) and their relaxation connected with viscous flow are taken into consideration. If the classical theory of nucleation is employed for the determination of the nucleation rates (modified by taking into account elastic stresses), elastic stresses may lead, for the system under consideration, to a decrease of the nucleation rate by up to two orders of magnitude. As shown, the theory allows an at least qualitatively correct incorporation of the effect of elastic stresses and stress relaxation into the description of nucleation phenomena in glass-forming melts.
To understand the impact of dissolved water on structure and properties, four boron-rich glasses of molar compositions 15-x Na2O x CaO 15 SiO2 70 B2O3 (with x=0, 7.5, 10) and 10 Na2O 15 SiO2 75 B2O3 were prepared and subsequently hydrated (up to 8 wt% H2O). Density measurements show a non-linear trend upon hydration implying large structural changes in particular at water contents<2 wt%. Near-infrared spectroscopy shows hydroxyl groups are the dominant species in all glasses upon the entire range of water content. Molecular H2O is detectable only at total water contents>2 wt%. 11B MAS NMR spectra show that the abundance of BO4 species is mainly controlled by ratio of (Na2O+CaO)/B2O3 while incorporation of water plays a minor role.
Compared to borate glasses, the efficiency of formation of BO4 tetrahedra is favored by crosslinking of the network by SiO4-units. The glass transition temperatures, determined by differential thermal analysis, decreases continuously with water content due to breakage of B-O-B bonds by hydrolysis. However, compared to Silicates and aluminosilicates, the effect of dissolved water is less pronounced which can be explained by weaker B-O-B bonds in comparison to Si-O-Si bonds.
Crack growth velocity in alkali silicate glasses was measured in vacuum across 10 orders of magnitude with double cantilever beam technique. Measured and literature crack growth data were compared with calculated intrinsic fracture toughness data obtained from Young´s moduli and the theoretical fracture surface energy estimated from chemical bond energies. Data analysis reveals significant deviations from this intrinsic brittle fracture behavior. These deviations do not follow simple compositional trends. Two opposing processes may explain this finding: a decrease in the apparent fracture surface energy due to stress-induced chemical changes at the crack tip and its increase due to energy dissipation during fracture.
The process of viscous flow sintering is a phenomenon that is closely linked to the surface properties of the glass particles. In this work, we studied the extreme case of acid-leaching of soda-lime-silicate glass beads of two different particle size distributions and its effects on non-isothermal viscous sintering of powder compacts. Depth profiling of the chemical composition after leaching revealed a near-surface layer depleted in alkali and alkaline earth ions, associated with concurrent hydration as mass loss was detected by thermogravimetry. Heating microscopy showed that acid treatment of glasses shifted the sinter curves to higher temperatures with increasing leaching time. Modelling of the shrinkage with the cluster model predicted a higher viscosity of the altered surface layer, while analysis of the time scales of mass transport of mobile species (Na+, Ca2+ and H2O) during isochronous sintering revealed that diffusion of Na+ can compensate for concentration gradients before sintering begins. Also, exchanged water species can diffuse out of the altered layer, but the depletion of Ca2+ in the altered surface layer persists during the sinter interval, resulting in a glass with higher viscosity, which causes sintering to slow down.