Radiation shielding performance of a borate-based glass system doped with bismuth oxide

Abstract

Proper shielding against radiation emitted by commonly used isotopes is essential in various medical, industrial, and nuclear facilities. In this study, we focus on the nuclear security and the radiation shielding against fast-neutrons, gamma-rays, and charged particles attenuation properties of the borate glasses containing zinc, bismuth, and lithium (as modifier) according to the chemical form of xBi2O3+ (25-x)Li2O+ 60B2O3+ 15ZnO, where x is varying from 0 to 20 mol%. The fundamental parameters related to gamma-shielding (e.g. attenuation and transmission factors) were investigated via FLUKA simulations for specific energies namely 0.511 and 1.275 MeV emitted by 22Na isotope, and 0.365, 0.637, 0.284, and 0.723 MeV emitted by 131I isotope. The influence of the systematic substitution of Bi2O3 by Li2O on the shielding properties was discussed in detail for gamma, neutron, and charged particles. In addition, comparative studies were also performed between the current borate glasses and the standard conventional shielding materials. The results of the present study indicate that the lowest MFP (HVL) occurred at 0.284 MeV (energy emitted by 22Na isotope) with the values (in the unit of cm) of 3.54 (2.45), 2.86 (1.98), 1.12 (0.78), 0.91 (0.63), and 0.72 (0.49) cm for the borate glasses of BLBZ1, BLBZ2, BLBZ3, BLBZ4, and BLBZ5, respectively. It was also observed that the maximum ℜ of BLBZ1 was seen at 1.3 MeV with the values of 2663.6, 19.3, 3.6, and 1.7 μm for the charged particles of an electron, proton, alpha particle, and carbon ion, respectively. This suggests that the BLBZ5 sample has a potential use in radiation shielding applications for superior nuclear security.