Gamma-ray Shielding Properties of Lithium Borate Glass Doped with Colemanit Mineral

Abstract

In this study, (Li2B4O7)(100-x)-(Colemanite)x glass systems (where x=10, 20, 30 and 40 wt %) were fabricated via melt quenching technique. The radiation shielding parameters of produced glasses such as mass attenuation coefficient (µ𝑚 ), effective atomic number (Zeff), electron density (Nel), half value layer (HVL) and mean free path (MFP) were measured experimentally for 81, 276, 302, 356, and 383 keV gamma ray energies with Hp-Ge detector. Also, WinXCom software was employed for theoretical calculation above radiation shielding parameters of glasses for 1 keV to 105 MeV energy region. It was seen that the experimental and theoretical results are good agreement with each other. The obtained results revealed that when percentage of colemanite mineral has been increased in the glass system, µ𝑚 , Zeff and Nel values increase. Furthermore, it was observed that the values of HVL and MFP, in contrary, decreases with increasing colemanite mineral percent. In specific, among the investigated glasses, lithium borate glass with 40 percentage colemanite mineral has the highest value of µ𝑚 , Zeff and Nel, however, it has the lowest HVL and MFP. Therefore, lithium borate glass with 40 percentage colemanite mineral has given the best results for gamma radiation shielding purpose among the investigated glass systems in this work.