Studies on the Shielding Properties of Transparent Glasses Prepared from Rice Husk Silica

Abstract

The glasses studied here have been prepared by the melt quenching technique from Egyptian rice husk silica.The obtained solid glasses exhibit amorphous nature and transparency. These glasses were selected to obey the following composition, (75-x) mol % RH silica. 25mol % Na2O. x mol % Bi2O3, where x takes the values, 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20. It was found that, as Bi2O3 was gradually increased both the density and molar volume values increased. The comparison between the experimental and empirical density and molar volume values confirm that all the studied glasses are in amorphous glassy phase. Moreover, all samples showed also good shielding properties against gamma ray radiation and neutrons. The mass attenuation coefficient of gamma ray radiation increased gradually as Bi2O3 was gradually increased while the HVL values exhibit gradual decrease, and the sample that contains 20 mol % Bi2O3 appeared the efficient one at low gamma ray energy (especially at 356 KeV). On the other hand for shielding neutrons the sample that contains 5 mol% Bi2O3 appeared the best one since it exhibits the highest neutron removal cross section.