Composition impacts of La2O3 on the structure and radiation shielding parameters of NiO–BaO–B2O3 glasses

Abstract

The present study focused on studying the internal structure and radiation shielding properties of a borate glass system containing lanthanum oxide (La2O3), nickel oxide (NiO), and barium oxide (BaO). With increasing La2O3 doping the density values increase from 2.79 g.cm−3 for the La2O3-free glass sample to 3.40 g.cm−3 for the glass sample containing 10 mol% of La2O3. Based on results from studying the structure, it has been seen that the amount of BO4 content increases as the amount of La2O3/B2O3 increases. In detail, the values of N4 ratio increased from 42.46 % for the La2O3-free sample to 49.70 % for the glass sample containing 10 mol% of La2O3 (about 17 %). This result implies that the addition of La2O3 strongly converts the BO3 units to BO4 units, this result is consistent with the observed density increment. On the other hand, the values of nonbridging oxygens deteriorated from 8.18 % to 5.14 % when La2O3 was introduced, from 0.0 mol% to 10.0 mol%. Moreover, the ionizing radiation shielding studies showed improved behavior with additional La2O3 additives. Where, with increasing the amount of La2O3 from 0 mol% to 10 mol%, there is an increase in the mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) values. Also, the half value layer (HVL) values of the present glass samples are comparatively lower than the HVL of some standard ionizing radiation shielding materials. The enhanced radiation shielding properties of the present glass system make them suitable for ionizing radiation shielding applications.