Gamma radiation shielding effectiveness of PbO doped borosilicate glasses.

In this study, the integration of PbO into a borosilicate glass system was investigated for enhanced radiation shielding performance. Several glasses with varying PbO concentrations (31, 33, 35 and 37 mol%) were prepared using the melt-quenching method. The density of the glasses increases from 4.579 to 5.044 g/cm as a result of increase the PbO content. The radiation attenuation factors were experimentally determined at 0.059, 0.662, 1.173 and 1.333 MeV, using HPGe detector. The results indicate that increasing PbO content notably influences the mass attenuation coefficient and the effective atomic number. The tenth value layer (TVL) increased significantly with rising energy levels. For the glass sample containing 31 mol% PbO₂, the TVL increased from 0.177 cm at 0.059 MeV to 5.325 cm at 0.662 MeV, and to 9.094 cm at 1.333 MeV. Similarly, for the glass with 37 mol% PbO₂, the TVL increased from 0.146 cm at 0.059 MeV to 4.733 cm at 0.662 MeV, and to 8.231 cm at 1.333 MeV. The results also showed that PbO₂ has an inverse effect on the TVL, where adding more PbO₂ leads to a decrease in the TVL. At 0.662 MeV, increasing the PbO₂ content from 31 to 37 mol% reduces the TVL by approximately 11.12%. The transmission factor (TF) for the glass with a thickness of 2 cm was investigated, and results showed that the TF is nearly 0 at 0.059 MeV, indicating that the glass provides complete shielding at this low energy. The TF increases with rising energy, reaching 37.8-42.11% at 0.662 MeV, indicating that more photons penetrate the glass as the energy increases.