High Density Binary TeO2–Bi2O3 Glasses: Strong Potential As a Nontoxic and Environmentally Friendly Glass Shields for Photons/charged Particles

Ionizing radiation/charged particles shielding capacity of high density bismuth tellurite based glasses: (100-x)TeO2+xBi2O3 with x = 5(TB5), 8(TB8), 10(TB10), 12(TB12), and 15 (TB15) mol% have been examined. New Phy-X/PSD software has been applied to achieve this aim. The gamma radiation shielding parameters such as mass/linear attenuation coefficients (MAC/LAC), half value thickness (HVT), effective atomic number/electron density (Zeff/Neff) and mean free path (MFP) were estimated for thirteen (13) energies in the range of 0.2835–2.506 MeV associated with 60Co, 137Cs, 131I, and 22Na sources. Comparatively, the obtained values revealed that (MAC/LAC)TB5 < (MAC/LAC)TB8 < (MAC/LAC)TB10 < (MAC/LAC)TB12 < (MAC/LAC)TB15. The Zeff and Neff varies from 25.01 to 43.96 and 2.69–4.25 × 1023 electrons/gram. The (HVT/MFP)TB15 < (HVT/MFP)TB12 < (HVT/MFP)TB10 < (HVT/MFP)TB8 < (HVT/MFP)TB5. The variation of the total stopping power (SP) of electron was obeyed the trend: (SP)TB5 < (SP)TB8 < (SP)TB10 < (SP)TB12 < (SP)TB15. Results revealed that the increase in the Bi2O3 content of the glasses has a positive influence on their photon absorbing ability.