Theoretical Investigation of the Influence of Different Heavy Metal Oxides Modifiers on ZnO-Bi2O3-B2O3-SiO2’s Photon- and Neutron-Shielding Capabilities Using the Monte Carlo Method

Abstract

Radiation has become an essential part in medicine and researchers are constituently investigating radiation shielding materials that are suitable for different medical applications. Glass, due to its properties, has been considered an excellent radiation shield for such applications. One of the most common glasses used as a radiation shield is the ZnO-Bi2O3-B2O3-SiO2 anti-radiation glass. Heavy metal oxides have many desirable properties such as high density, transparency to visible light, stability in air and water, high interaction cross section, high infrared transparency, and good absorption of radiation, which make them desirable to be used as modifiers with anti-radiation glass. Research has been focusing on environmentally friendly shielding material which leads to non-lead modifiers such as Na2O, Al2O3, MgO, TiO2, SrO, Sb2O3, and BaO, which have become more desired than PbO. So far, ZnO-Bi2O3-B2O3-SiO2’s photon shielding properties have been studied experimentally with the addition of BaO at certain energies only. In this work, different heavy metal oxides are added as modifiers to ZnO-Bi2O3-B2O3-SiO2 glass in order to investigate theoretically their effects on the shielding properties of the glass at a wide range of photon and neutron energies. Simulation is cost- and time-effective when it comes to investigating different compositions of glass and different modifiers with different weight percentages at any energy range for any type of radiation. Simulation could be considered the first step in order to identify the best mixture with the best weight fractions prior to any experimental investigations of other desired properties based on the needed application. In this work, the photon- and neutron-shielding capabilities of the ZnO-Bi2O3-B2O3-SiO2 anti-radiation glass is investigated with different weight fractions of heavy metal oxides at wide photon and neutron energy ranges. Geant4, which is a Monte Carlo-based powerful toolkit, is used to find the mass attenuation coefficients (µm) of photons, as well as the effective removal cross sections (ΣR) of neutrons, of all the investigated samples in the studied energy range.