Investigation on the radiation shielding properties of lead silicate glasses modified by ZnO and BaO

Abstract

Lead glasses are a category of silicate glasses used for the absorption of electromagnetic waves. In this research, the radiation shielding properties of xSiO2.(1-x)PbO2 Glass system by adding 5, 10, and 15 mol.% of ZnO and BaO (that the value of additive decreases equally from SiO2 and PbO2 percentages) are investigated. Characterization includes XRD, SEM, EDAX, DRS (UV–vis), and density analyses. DRS analysis and XCOM software are utilized to investigate the absorption value in the range of 200–900 nm and γ-ray wavelength, respectively. It was revealed that the more ZnO and BaO percentages lead to higher absorption values. The Tauc plot showed that by increasing ZnO or BaO percentage, optical band-gap energies decrease, leading to a higher refractive index and less transparency. In the range of γ-ray wavelength, XCOM software showed that the best absorption value among all synthesized lead glasses is attributed to the glass containing 15% ZnO that for example, at 0.015 MeV provides 8.28% increase in mass absorption coefficient in comparison to the base sample. Besides, in the range of UV–vis wavelength, the highest absorption belongs to lead glass containing 15% ZnO. Therefore, 51%SiO2–34%PbO2–15%ZnO was selected as the best candidate for protective lead glasses. In this paper, the mechanisms of absorption in the base and dopped glasses have well been discussed.