Borotellurite glass system doped with ZrO2, potential use for radiation shielding

Abstract

Boro-tellurite former based glasses have recently sparked the interest of a number of researchers as a powerful optical device and shielding material. In this study, novel glasses of composition (60B2O3 –(10-x) CaO–10Na2O – 20TeO2 - xZrO2) where x is varied from 0.0 to 3.0% mol have been integrated using the melt-quenching method. Even at high concentrations of ZrO2, the obtained X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns revealed the absence of crystalline peaks, confirming the glassy nature of all glass samples. The physio-chemical and radiation shielding characteristic were evaluated for specimens. The thermal transition temperatures as well as the glass thermal stability were determined using a Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) test. Glass stability was found to deteriorate with increasing ZrO2 content. Radiation shielding characteristics were calculated theoretically using the Phy-X/PSD and WinXCom databases, and the findings reveal that the glass sample with the greatest ZrO2 concentration has the best gamma ray shielding in the energy range of (0.015 MeV−15 MeV). Furthermore, when compared to ordinary concrete, the computed fast neutron removal cross-section (FNRC) revealed a 36.84 percent improvement. The shielding results show that light-weight transparent ZrO2-doped boro-tellurite glasses compositions might be a promising candidate for a variety of shielding applications. The optimum proportion of ZrO2 additive is determined by the balance between greater shielding and glass stability qualities, which varies depending on the application.