Potassium-lime-silicate glasses. Dosimeter materials for environmental monitoring tasks

Potassium-lime-silicate glasses are suitable dosimeter materials to monitor and summarize synergetic corrosive effects of complex environments. Systematic analytical studies including field exposures as well as laboratory simulation tests help to understand the interaction of such standarized glass specimens with combined stresses induced by climate and air pollutants. Based on these dose/response investigations the "Glass Sensor Method" was established, which meanwhile applies to various fields of environmental stress mapping. Typical examples for the methods performance are the control of showcases in museums, the risk assesment at monuments, tzhe evaluation of small-scale and large-scale stress distributions in urban areas or at industrial plants, as well as an important input for the technical design of quality control test equipment.