Investigation of optic, physical, and radiation shielding properties of B2O3-PbO-TeO2-CeO2-WO3 glasses

This study is aimed to produce radiation-shielding glass materials with high physical properties by adding WO3 at different amounts (x=1, 3, 5, 10, 20 mol%) to B2O3-PbO-TeO2-CeO2 glasses. For this purpose, 45B2O3-(20-x) PbO-30TeO2-5CeO2 glasses were produced by melt casting method using B2O3-PbO-TeO2-CeO2 powders. The mass attenuation coefficients (MAC), mean free path (MFP), half value layer (HVL) and effective atomic numbers (Zeff) of the prepared glasses were experimentally measured in the 59.54-661.62 keV energy region and these parameters were calculated theoretically. The basic structural properties of the synthesized glasses were investigated using XRD, UV-Vis and FT-IR spectroscopic techniques XRD results showed that all prepared glass compositions formed a glassy amorphous structure. The hardness of the samples forming a glassy amorphous structure was measured by the Micro-Vickers method. It was observed that the hardness values of the samples increased from 3,53 to 4,14 GPa in the 0-5% WO3 additive range and decreased up to 3,76 GPa in the 10-20% WO3 additive range. The fracture toughness of the glasses increased from 1.07 to 1.14 MPa.m0.5 in the 0-5% WO3 additive range determined by the Half-Penny-Crack method and decreased to 1.09 MPa.m0.5 in the 10-20% additive range. The densities of the samples were determined according to the Archimedes principle and as the amount of WO3 additive increased, the density decreased from 4.93 to 4.63 gr/cm3, and the modulus of elasticity increased from 77 to 91 GPa. As a result of the research findings, it was concluded that the mechanical properties of these glasses were improved with WO3 additive. Also, considering the mass attenuation coefficient values, we can say that WO3 additive increases the radiation shielding ability of the prepared glass samples.