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Vitrification (from Latin vitrum 'glass', via French vitrifier) is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, [1] that is to say, a non-crystalline or amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses possess a higher degree of connectivity with the same Hausdorff dimensionality of bonds as crystals: dim ...
For example, microscopic particles of silica called phytoliths can be found in grasses and other plants. Silica is an amorphous metalloid oxide formed by complex inorganic polymerization processes. This is opposed to the other major biogenic minerals, comprising carbonate and phosphate , which occur in nature as crystalline iono-covalent solids ...
Ash-flow tuffs typically consist of countless microscopic shards of volcanic glass. [3] Basalt, which is low in silica, forms glass only with difficulty, so that basalt tephra almost always contains at least some crystalline material (quench crystals). [2] The glass transition temperature of basalt is about 700 °C (1,292 °F). [4]
Other materials, such as many polymers, lack a well defined crystalline state and easily form glasses, even upon very slow cooling or compression. The tendency for a material to form a glass while quenched is called glass forming ability. This ability depends on the composition of the material and can be predicted by the rigidity theory. [12]
In condensed matter physics and materials science, an amorphous solid (or non-crystalline solid) is a solid that lacks the long-range order that is a characteristic of a crystal. The terms " glass " and "glassy solid" are sometimes used synonymously with amorphous solid; however, these terms refer specifically to amorphous materials that ...
Perlite softens when it reaches temperatures of 850–900 °C (1,560–1,650 °F). Water trapped in the structure of the material vaporises and escapes, and this causes the expansion of the material to 7–16 times its original volume. The expanded material is a brilliant white, due to the reflectivity of the trapped bubbles.
In chemistry, the term chemically inert is used to describe a substance that is not chemically reactive.From a thermodynamic perspective, a substance is inert, or nonlabile, if it is thermodynamically unstable (positive standard Gibbs free energy of formation) yet decomposes at a slow, or negligible rate.
A glass building facade. Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid.Because it is often transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window panes, tableware, and optics.