Experimental evaluation of radiation shielding characteristics of borate-based-glass system reinforced with titanium oxide

Abstract

In this work, the attenuation capability of new Borate-based-glass system reinforced with titanium oxide containing PbO, CaO, TiO2 and B2O3 with different percentages was determined. Four different glass samples were synthesized by experimental technique using high pure germanium detector at different gamma ray sources using narrow beam method. The experimental method was verified by XCOM software. The values of the two methods were close and the relative deviation was satisfactory (less than 5 %) for all gamma energies (0.060, 0.662, 1.173 and 1.333 MeV). The highest linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) values achieved at low radiation energy of 0.0595 MeV. The Highest LAC values were 13.64, 13.97, 14.32 and 14.67 cm−1 for samples PCBT-1, PCBT-2, PCBT-3 and PCBT-4 in the same order, respectively. Conversely, the lowest LAC values in the examined energy range were found at 1.333 MeV. The lowest LAC values were 0.259, 0.266, 0.272 and 0.279 cm−1 for the aforementioned glasses, respectively. At 0.662 MeV, the transmission factor (TF) values decreases as 64.18, 63.54, 62.88 and 62.19 % as TiO2 content increases as 5, 10, 15 and 20 mol % in the same order, respectively. The decreases in TF values was linked to an observable increase in the radiation protection efficiency (RPE). The increase in RPE with the increase of TiO2 content confirms that the addition of TiO2 leads to an improvement in the radiation shielding performance for the prepared glasses.