Chemical diffusion in silicate melts plays a vital role in a wide range of scientific disciplines, spanning from geology to materials science. Understanding the mechanisms and rates of chemical diffusion in silicate melts is crucial for elucidating geological processes, predicting material behavior, and designing advanced materials, in particular for vitrification technologies.

In this talk, I will describe the characteristics of chemical diffusion in silicate melts, and in particular how diffusion is linked to the structure of melts, with the different role of network modifiers and formers. Then I will show how diffusion data can be measured from experiments and simulations, both for diffusion coefficients and multicomponent diffusion matrices. Finally, I will discuss how to build models to predict diffusion rates in various cases.