Vitrification

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Vitrification (from Latin vitrum 'glass', via French vitrifier) is the full or partial transformation of a substance into glass. In the production of ceramics, vitrification is responsible for their impermeability to water. The most common applications are in the making of pottery, glass, and some types of food, but there are many others, such as the vitrification of an antifreeze-like liquid in cryopreservation. Vitrification is also used in the disposal and long-term storage of radioactive waste, in which the waste is immobilized within a hardened glass material considered more stable for containment. In Herculaneum, the Roman town destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, a piece of glass-like organic material was found inside the skull of a man. It is proposed to be the person's brain, vitrified by the extreme temperature of a pyroclastic flow, possibly higher than 510 °C (950 °F).

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