Feasibility Study of Using High-Temperature Raman Spectroscopy for On-Line Monitoring and Product Control of the Glass Vitrification Process

A pulse-gating Raman spectroscopy setup was developed in this project. The setup was capable of performing in-situ high-temperature Raman measurements for glasses at temperatures as high as 1412 C. In the literature, high-temperature Raman measurements have only been performed on thin films of glass to minimize black-body radiation effects. The pulse-gating Raman setup allows making high-temperature measurements for bulk melts while effectively minimizing black-body radiation effects. A good correlation was found between certain Raman characteristic parameters and glass melt temperature for sodium silicate glasses measured in this project. Comparisons were made between the high-temperature Raman data from this study and literature data. The results suggest that an optimization of the pulse-gating Raman setup is necessary to further improve data quality (i.e., to obtain data with a higher signal-to-noise ratio). An W confocal Raman microspectrometer with continuous wave laser excitation using a 325 nm excitation line was evaluated selectively using a transparent silicate glass ad a deep-colored high-level waste glass in a bulk quantity. The data were successfully collected at temperatures as high as approximately 1500 C. The results demonstrated that the UV excitation line can be used for high-temperature Raman measurements of molten glasses without black-body radiation interference from the melt for both transparent and deep-color glasses. Further studies are needed to select the best laser system that can be used to develop high-temperature Raman glass databases