Determination of inert gas solubilities in borosilicate glass melts

The solubilities of noble gases: helium, neon, argon and krypton in a hard borosilicate glass melt were determined using a saturation outgassing method. It is shown that the solubility decreases with increasing atomic size in the order He>Ne>Ar>Kr. The solubilities of He, Ne and Ar increase slightly with increasing temperature. The thermodynamic values for the temperature dependence of Henry's coefficient [molgas/molglass bar] were determined to be ΔH ⁰=32·4±20·3 kJ/mol and ΔS ⁰=−75·3±12·7 J/mol K for He, ΔH ⁰=37·2±16·0 kJ/mol and ΔS ⁰=−78·8±9·8 J/mol/K for Ne and ΔH ⁰=31·2±3·3 kJ/mol and ΔS ⁰=−93·5±2·0 J/mol K for Ar. The outgassing method was also used to determine the residual argon concentration in a commercial hard borosilicate glass.