High density of tungsten gadolinium borate glasses for radiation shielding material: Effect of WO3 concentration

The aim of this work is to study the radiation shielding properties in the glass systems xWO3: (70-x)Gd2O3: 30B2O3 (WGB) where x = 40, 45, 50, 55, and 60 mol%. These glasses were prepared by the melt quenching techniques. The Compton scattering technique was used to measure the experimental values of the total mass attenuation coefficient (MAC), the effective atomic number (Zeff), and the electron density (Neff) at 0.223 MeV–0.662 MeV. The measured MAC, Zeff, and Neff results were compared with the simulated and theoretical values obtained from Geant4 code and WinXcom software respectively. The comparison between the experimental, simulation and theoretical approaches for the determination of the several radiation shielding factors reflects the good detection system setup of Compton scattering experiment. The density is decreased with the increasing of WO3 concentrations from 6.1868 g/cm3 to 5.2669 g/cm3 and molar volume result demonstrated non-bridging oxygen and network former in the glass structure. The MAC, Zeff, and Neff results have similar trends, which increase by adding WO3 contents, and decrease with increasing of the energies. The HVL result showed that increased at the higher WO3 concentrations. Moreover, the HVL at 40 mol % of the concentration showed the highest density, and demonstrated better efficiency when compared with some standard shielding materials. •High density WO3-Gd2O3–B2O3 glasses were developed.•137Cs was used for radiation shielding properties investigation.•The experimental values of shielding properties are comparable to WinXCom and Gent4 software.•Replacing of WO3 in Gd2O3 can enhance shielding properties of the glass.