Borate multicomponent of bismuth rich glasses for gamma radiation shielding application

Abstract

In this work, six borate-bismuth glasses have been synthesized using a conventional melt-quenching-aneling process with a composition of (80-x)B2O3[sbnd]10ZnO[sbnd]10MgO-xBi2O3 where x = 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 mol%. The glasses were melted at 975 °C for 30 min and annealed at 300 °C for 5 h. Different physical properties of these glasses have been measured and estimated. X-ray diffraction has been utilized to investigate the structural nature of these glasses. Optical absorption and transmittance spectra have been measured for all samples in the range of 300–800 nm at room temperature. The cutoff wavelength of all glass samples was determined. In addition, the radiation shielding characterization for the glass samples was done by calculating the linear and mass attenuation coefficients, mean free path, and half value layer of the photon energy ranges between 0.015 and 15 MeV using MicroShield. It was found that the glass with the highest Bi2O3 content showed the best performance in attenuating gamma radiation by exhibiting the highest linear attenuation coefficient and both lowest mean free path and half value layer due to its high density of 7.107 g/cm3.