Newly developed tellurium oxide glasses for nuclear shielding applications: An extended investigation

•Newly developed tellurium oxide glasses have been fabricated.•Nuclear shielding characterization of fabricated glasses has been extensively studied.•TeO2 concentration has directly affected on studied glassy systems.•TEO6 has better performance in terms of shielding purposes than other glass samples. Newly developed glasses were produced using different compositions as follows (in wt.%): (85TeO2-15ZnO, 85.00TeO2-12.95ZnO-2.05Al2O3, 85.40TeO2–3.20PbO-6.97ZnO-4.43Na2O, 83.5TeO2-16.5BaO, 82.77TeO2–17.23Nb2O5, 54.6TeO2-22.6WO3-22.8Bi2O3). The acquired mass attenuation coefficients (μ/ρ) were used to determine another vital parameters for gamma-ray shielding performance namely mean free path (MFP), half value layer (HVL), tenth value layer (TVL), energy absorption buildup factor (EABF), exposure buildup factor (EBF), effective atomic number (Zeff), respectively. Simultaneously, effective removal cross section (∑R) values for fast neutrons, proton projected range (PPR), alpha projected range (APR), proton mass stopping power (PMSP), alpha mass stopping power (AMSP), neutron absorption parameters (absorption neutron scattering cross section (σabs)), SAFE factors and relative dose distribution (RDD) have been investigated for fabricated glass samples. The results showed that the 54.6TeO2-22.6WO3-22.8Bi2O3 composition has the best performance in terms of nuclear shielding purposes. It is worth recommending the continuous investigations on chemical combinations and changes of TeO2 concentration for future applications.