| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
MS&T21: Materials Science & Technology
|
| Symposium
|
Glasses and Optical Materials: Current Issues and Functional Applications
|
| Presentation Title |
Cooper Scholar 1st Runner-up: Relationship between Number of Non-bridging Oxygens and Ionic Conductivity Discontinuity in xLi2O-(1-x) B2O3, with x ≤ 0.67 |
| Author(s) |
Graham Beckler |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Graham Beckler |
| Abstract Scope |
The mechanisms behind ionic conductivity in glasses are not fully understood. A particular case can be seen in highly modified lithium borate glasses (x Li2O-(1-x) B2O3). It was proposed that the conductivity was solely related to the number of free lithium ions in the glass. Between 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.3 the numbers of those free ions increases, at which point the conductivity plateaus until x ≥ 0.5 where it was believed that the conductivity would begin to increase again [Takeda et al 2019]. Literature values for the ionic conductivity and activation energy are abundant for Li2O-B2O3 up to x ≤ 0.5 and support the previously proposed model [Montouillout, 2019], however, glasses of higher lithium content (x > 0.5) were scarce due to the increased difficulty of producing glasses with a high proportion of modifier. Taking advantage of Coe College’s expertise in producing hard-to-obtain samples, our group was able to prepare glasses of higher lithium content (x ≤ 0.67) in order to test the applicability of the proposed model past the supposed end of the plateau. Our experimental values for the ionic conductivity and activation energy diverged from the applied model at the hypothesised x = 0.5 inflection point, prompting further investigation into the phenomena. |