Designing and significantly improved TeO2-based glass system for nuclear engineering applications: Radiation shielding performance and optical transparency

Abstract

The radiation (beta particles (β), protons (1H), α-particles (He2+), carbon ions (C6+), fast neutrons (FN), and thermal neutrons (TN)) absorption parameters of 75TeO2–10MoO3–10BaO–(5-x)Sm2O3–xBi2O3 glass system were evaluated and presented along with their optical parameters in this study. The parameters were analyzed with the objective of evaluating the role of Sm and Bi atoms in altering the optical and radiation characteristics of the glass system. Starting with high-purity chemicals, namely BaCO3, Bi2O3, MoO3, TeO2, and Sm2O3, and following the melt-and-quench procedure, 75TeO2–10MoO3–10BaO–(5-x)Sm2O3–xBi2O3 glasses were prepared as TeMoBa-Sm/Bi1, TeMoBa-Sm/Bi2, TeMoBa-Sm/Bi3, TeMoBa-Sm/Bi4, and TeMoBa-Sm/Bi5 for Bi2O3 molar concentration of 0, 2, 4, 4.5, and 5 mol %, respectively. The optical parameters were computed theoretically from measured absorption spectra. The stopping powers and ranges of β-particles, protons, and α-particles were estimated using the ESTAR, PSTAR, and ASTAR software, respectively, while the SRIM code was used to compute for heavy carbon ions. In addition, the cross-sections of fast (FN) and thermal (TN) neutrons were computed using the standard expressions. There was a positive correlation between Bi2O3 content and the molar volume of the glasses. The refractive indices vary slightly between 2.53 and 2.56. The molar refractivity (Rm) values for TeMoBa-Sm/Bi1, TeMoBa-Sm/Bi2, TeMoBa-Sm/Bi3, TeMoBa-Sm/Bi4, and TeMoBa-Sm/Bi5 are 19.769 cm3/mol, 19.730 cm3/mol, 19.689 cm3/mol, 19.656 cm3/mol, and 19.754 cm3/mol, respectively. The values of Sp for proton are highest at 0.09 MeV with values of 284.047, 281.041, 278.135, 277.434 and 276.633 MeV cm2/g for TeMoBa-Sm/Bi1, TeMoBa-Sm/Bi2, TeMoBa-Sm/Bi3, TeMoBa-Sm/Bi4, and TeMoBa-Sm/Bi5, respectively. The Bi2O3 content thus improved the CR shielding ability of the glass system slightly. The optimum Bi2O3 concentration for FN shielding is 4 mol %. In addition, Bi2O3 compromised the TN absorption ability of the TeMoBa-Sm/Bi glass system.