A new protective glass material against gamma ray: Thorough analysis to determine the impact of adding gadolinium (III) oxide

This work presents a study of the effect of replacing lead dioxide and gadolinium (III) oxide with boron trioxide on the physical, mechanical, and radiation shielding properties for the B₂O₃-Na₂O-ZnO-PbO₂-Gd₂O₃ glass systems. The Archimedes method confirms that the increase in the PbO₂+Gd₂O₃ concentration within the fabricated glass system in the range from 16 to 22 mol.% increases the fabricated glass samples' density from 4.052 to 4.408 g/cm³. Additionally, the Makishima-Mackenzie model was utilized to investigate the influence of PbO₂+Gd₂O₃ on the mechanical properties of the investigated glass samples. The increase in the substituting of PbO₂+Gd₂O₃ decreases the fabricated glass samples' mechanical properties and micro-hardness. Furthermore, the Monte Carlo simulation method was applied for the estimation of the impact of PbO₂+Gd₂O₃ concentration on the fabricated samples' radiation shielding parameters. The increase in the concentration of PbO₂+Gd₂O₃ with range of (16, 18, 20 and 22) leads to increase the linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) to 8.014–11.517 cm⁻¹ at 0.06 MeV, 0.381–0.423 cm⁻¹ at 0.6 MeV, 0.133–0.149 cm⁻¹ at 5 MeV, and 0.132–0.154 cm⁻¹ at 15 MeV with the same order, respectively. Therefore, the introduction of PbO₂+Gd₂O₃ concentration enhances the fabricated glass samples' radiation shielding properties to be suitable for γ-ray shielding applications.