The distribution of sodium ions in aluminosilicate glasses: A high-field Na-23 MAS and 3Q MAS NMR study

The local configurations around sodium ions in silicate glasses and melts and their distributions have strong implications for the dynamic and static properties of melts and thus may play important roles in magmatic processes. The quantification of distributions among charge-balancing cations, including Na in aluminosilicate glasses and melts, however, remains a difficult problem that is relevant to high-temperature geochemistry as well as glass science. Here, we explore the local environment around Na in charge-balanced aluminosilicate glasses (the NaAlO2-SiO2 join) and its distribution using Na magic-angle spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy at varying magnetic fields of 9.4, 14.1, and 18.8 T, as well as triple-quantum (3Q)MAS NMR spectroscopy at 9.4 T, to achieve better understanding of the extent of disorder around this cation. We quantify the extent of this disorder in terms of changes in Na-O distance (d[Na-O]) distributions with composition and present a structural model favoring a somewhat ordered Na distribution, called a “perturbed” Na distribution model. The peak position in Na MAS spectra of aluminosilicate glasses moves toward lower frequencies with increasing Si/Al ratios, implying that the average d(Na-O) increases with increasing R. The peak width is significantly reduced at higher fields (14.1 and 18.8 T) because of the reduced effect of second-order quadrupolar interaction, and Na MAS NMR spectra thus provide relatively directly the Na chemical shift distribution and changes in atomic environment with composition. Chemical shift distributions obtained from Na 3Q MAS spectra are consistent with MAS NMR data, in which deshielding decreases with R. The average distances between Na and the three types of bridging oxygens (BOs) (Na-{Al-O-Al}, Na-{Si-O-Al}, and Na-{Si-O-Si}) were obtained from the correlation between d(Na-O) and isotropic chemical shift. The calculated d(Na-{Al-O-Al}) of 2.52 Å is shorter than the d(Na-{Si-O-Si}) of 2.81 Å, and d(Na-{Al-O-Al}) shows a much narrower distribution than the other types of BOs. Na chemical shifts in binary (Al-free) sodium silicate glasses are more deshielded and have ranges distinct from those of aluminosilicate glasses, implying that d(Na-NBO) (nonbridging oxygen) is shorter than d(Na-BO) and that d(Na-{Si-O-Si}) in binary silicates can be shorter than that in aluminosilicate glasses. The results given here demonstrate that high-field Na NMR is an effective probe of the Na environment, providing not only average structural information but also chemically and topologically distinct chemical shift ranges (distributions) and their variation with composition and their effects on static and dynamic properties. Copyright © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd