Experimental Study on the Radiation Shielding Performance of B2O3-SiO2-TeO2-Bi2O3-ZnO-BaO Glass Systems Containing Europium (III) Oxide

Abstract

The radiation shielding abilities of Europium Oxide doped Bismuth Tellurium Barium Zinc Borosilicate glasses were investigated in this study. Five glass samples, denoted as BiTeEu-0, BiTeEu-1, BiTeEu-2, BiTeEu-3, and BiTeEu-4, were assessed to determine their effectiveness in shielding against incident photon energies of 356, 662, 1173, and 1332 KeV. The glass composition was 12B2O3–16SiO2-xEu2O3-(40-x)TeO2−12Bi2O3−12ZnO-8BaO, where x ranged from 0 to 4 mol%. In order to assess the effectiveness of the prepared glass systems as radiation shields, several numerical parameters were experimentally measured. These parameters included the linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) and other relevant factors. In order to validate the experimental setup, the LAC values were determined theoretically using WinXCOM software. This provided an opportunity to compare the experimental results with the theoretical values, allowing for the accuracy of the measurements to be assessed. The theoretical and experimental LAC values were identical, indicating the reliability of the experimental setup. A declining trend was found for the value of mean free path (MFP) as - BiTeEu-0 (0 mol% Eu2O3) > BiTeEu-1 (1 mol% Eu2O3) > BiTeEu-2 (2 mol% Eu2O3) > BiTeEu-3 (3 mol% Eu2O3) > BiTeEu-4 (4 mol% Eu2O3) from energy 0.06 MeV to 1.332 MeV. Results showed that the incorporation of higher amounts of Eu2O3 into the current glass systems resulted in a reduction in the value of half value layer (HVL) and mean free path (MFP), but an increase in the radiation protection efficiency. The study found that among the researched glass samples, the sample BiTeEu-4 [12B2O3−16SiO2−4Eu2O3−36TeO2−12Bi2O3−12ZnO-8BaO] provided the best radiation protection efficiency from 0.06 MeV to 1.33 MeV energy range.