4. Glass weathering kinetics

Understanding the weathering mechanisms of nuclear glass is primarily aimed at quantifying weathering kinetics and assessing the release rates of radioelements into the environment. The mechanisms described above depend on the following sequence:

• transport of the reagent to the reaction site ;

• chemical reaction ;

• transport of reaction products away from the reaction site.

These transport stages and the various reactions that follow one another or take place in parallel make glass weathering in the broadest sense a complex process, limited either by the fastest sequence for reactions that occur in parallel, or by the slowest sequence for reactions that follow one another (figure