BaO-doped B₂O₃-Na₂O-PbO-SiO₂ glasses: Improved radiation shielding properties for protection applications

In this paper, we prepared 10Na₂O-15PbO-10SiO₂-(65-x)B₂O₃-xBaO (x=5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 mol%) glasses using melt quenching method. For the prepared glasses, we studied the radiation shielding properties using Phy-X software. The mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) was determined at 0.122 and 0.245 MeV and the results demonstrated that the MAC at 0.122 MeV is higher than that at 0.245 MeV. For the glass with 5 mol% BaO, the MAC values at 0.122 and 0.245 MeV are 1.285 and 0.292 cm²/g, respectively. The glass with 25 mol% BaO has higher MAC values than the other glasses, which indicated that increasing the amount of BaO in the glass system at the expense of B₂O₃ will improve the material's attenuation capacity. The change in the linear attenuation coefficient (∆LAC) upon adding BaO to the glass system was examined, and the results showed that the addition of BaO has a significant impact on attenuation at low energies. The effective atomic number (Z_ef) was calculated and we found that the inclusion of BaO causes a shift in the Z_eff at all energies. At 0.122 MeV, the Z_eff values are equal to 48.00, 49.39, 50.68, 51.87 and 52.97 for the glasses with 5 to 25 mol% BaO respectively. Also, for the same glasses but at 0.678 MeV, the Z_eff values are 12.89, 13.87, 14.92, 16.05 and 17.27 respectively. The mean free path was examined at 0.296 MeV and we found that there is an opposite relationship between the MFP values and the BaO concentration in the samples. According to obtained results, the glass with 25 mol% BaO has the highest shielding potential at the selected energy range.