Radiation shielding competencies for waste soda–lime–silicate glass reinforced with Ta2O5: experimental, computational, and simulation studies

In this study, the authors emphasized an incisive purpose as the valorization of waste soda–lime–silicate glass (SLS) for a potential gamma-rays shielding material. For this, xTa2O5-(100-x)SLS glass systems where x: 0, 0.005, 0.05, and 0.5 wt% were fabricated via conventional melting technique. The synthesized four glass specimens (RG and RGT1 to RGT3) were then subjected to physical, optical, and radiation shielding measurements. Simulation studies (MCNP-5) and theoretical computations (XCOM) were conducted to validate the findings. The results clearly showed that the insertion of Ta2O5 improved both physical and optical properties. In particular, RGT3, having a higher amount, possessed the highest glass density (ρglass) and refractive index (n) values. On the other hand, the transmission factor (TF) data revealed that increasing the thickness of the glass sample caused a notable decrease in the TF values. RG decreases from 92.233% to 78.461%, 61.562%, and 48.302% for thicknesses of 0.5 cm, 1.5 cm, 3 cm, and 4.5 cm. RGT3 shows the best radiation shielding potential out of the investigated waste SLS samples according to the several radiation shielding factors.