Alteration of glasses by micro-organisms

Micro-organisms are suspected to play a basic part in materials alteration. Obviously, they will be present in nuclear waste repositories, either intr oduced by technological activity or laid by fluids circulation. Their metab olism may induce chemical modifications to the surrounding media and then a ffect the durability of storage materials. Biodegradation of glasses is stu died in the Pierre Sue Laboratory. In the frame of a collaboration with mic robiologists interested in stained glasses alteration, leaching experiments with various species of bacteria and fungi are carried out. Ion beam analy sis techniques are performed to quantify surface modification of glasses an d elemental incorporation in micro-organisms. Analyses of the solutions wil l lead to a complete assessment of elemental exchanges between glass sample , culture media and micro-organisms. In this paper, preliminary results on characterisation of glasses and micro-organisms and the first results of le aching experiments are presented. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.