The role of Bi2O3 on radiation shielding characteristics of ternary bismuth tellurite glasses

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the radiation shielding features of (90-x)TeO2–xBi2O3-10Na2CO3 (x = 4, 8,12,16 and 20 mol%) glasses. The mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) indicates that the shielding effectiveness of these glasses decreases as the energy is raised by showing a progressive reduction with increasing energy. The MAC at 0.284 MeV takes the values between 0.194 and 0.279 cm2/g for the glasses with 4 and 20 mol% of Bi2O3 and reduces to 0.079–0.090 cm2/g for these two samples at 0.662 MeV. With the addition of Bi2O3, a reasonable increase in the linear attenuation factor (LAC) values was also seen. This suggests that the addition of Bi2O3 has resulted in an enhancement in the gamma ray shielding properties. When compared to all other glasses, BT5 glass exhibited LAC values that ranged from 0.295 to 1.562 cm−1, which were the highest. The results indicate that the effective atomic number (Zeff) for the ternary bismuth tellurite glasses increases when TeO2 is replaced by Bi2O3. The Zeff of the glass with 20 mol% of Bi2O3 is higher than that of other samples, whilst that of 4 mol% of Bi2O3 is the lowest. At increasing energies, the mean free path (MFP), which is strongly energy dependent, expands. The MFP gradually declines as Bi2O3 content increases at the expense of TeO2, suggesting that the radiation attenuation characteristics of the selected specimen have gotten better as the Bi2O3 content increases.