Comparing basic radiation attenuation factors of tellurite glasses containing PbCl₂ and Bi₂O₃ with some other potential glass systems

In this work, we have compared the radiation shielding properties of tellurite glasses containing PbCl₂ and Bi₂O₃ with some other potential glass systems at 0.662 MeV. The linear attenuation coefficients (LAC) for the selected glasses was compared with those reported previously for Bi₂O₃-Na₂O-B₂O₃ glass system. We found that 70TeO₂-15PbCl₂-15Bi₂O₃ and 70TeO₂-10PbCl₂-20Bi₂O₃ glasses have higher LAC values than all the Bi₂O₃-Na₂O-B₂O₃ glasses, while the LAC value of 90TeO₂-5PbCl₂-5Bi₂O₃ is very close to that of 30Bi₂O₃-20Na₂O-50B₂O₃. Also, the LAC values for present glasses was compared with those of PbO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂ glasses. Among our selected glasses, 70TeO₂-15PbCl₂-15Bi₂O₃ has same LAC as that reported for 0.5PbO-0.1Al₂O₃-0.4SiO₂ glass. We also have compared the LAC values of the tellurite glasses containing PbCl₂ and Bi₂O₃ glasses with B₂O₂-Na₂O-Bi₂O₃-WO₃ glass system, and we found that the LAC for 90TeO₂-5PbCl₂-5Bi₂O₃ glass is close to LAC of 0.55B₂O₂-0.2Na₂O-0.2Bi₂O₃-0.05WO₃ glass. The effective atomic number (Z_eff) of the present glasses was compared with the values reported for Bi₂O₃-SiO₂-Al₂O₃ glass system at 0.662 MeV. The results demonstrated that the selected glasses have lower Z_eff values ranging between 28.12 and 35.04, and these values are values less compared to Z_eff of all the glasses in Bi₂O₃-SiO₂-Al₂O₃ system. The selected glasses were found to be better shielding agents than PbO-WO₃-Na₂O-MgO-B₂O₃ glasses. In terms of half value layer, the selected glasses were compared with other glasses doped with heavy metal oxides and we found that all the selected glasses (except the sample with composition of 90TeO₂-5PbCl₂-5Bi₂O₃) exhibit lower range of HVL than PbO-Sb₂O₃-B₂O₃-Gd₂O₃ glasses.