A comprehensive examination of zinc-boro-vanadate glass reinforced with Ag 2 O in physical, optical, mechanical, and radiation shielding aspects

This study explored the zinc-boro-vanadate (ZBV) glass reinforced with Ag2O to show radiation shielding competencies. A glass system with composition 20ZnO-55B2O3-(25-x)V2O5-xAg2O, where x ranges from 0 to 10 with the steps of 2.5 mol%, was designed. Some physical and optical calculations were employed to figure out glass density (ρglass), molar volume (Vm), oxygen molar volume (OMV), oxygen packing density (OPD), refractive index (n), dielectric constant (ϵ), and metalization criterion (M) for the glass system of ZBV0 to ZBV10. According to the findings, one can specify that the increasing content of Ag2O enhanced both the physical and optical features of the ZBV series. The glass density was increased from 3.3150 to 3.6930 g/cm3, while the refractive index was raised from 3.0693 to 3.1216 with the insertion ratio of Ag2O from 0 to 10 mol%. The ZBV10 sample having the maximum Ag2O of 10 mol% ensured to improve physical and optical properties. The shielding properties of the examined glass samples were investigated to evaluate their ability for radiation protection purposes. The Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code 5 (MCNP-5) was utilized to assess the projected gamma photons' average track length on the investigated glass samples. Then, the linear attenuation coefficient (LAC), half-value layer (HVL), transmission factor (TF), and radiation protection efficiency (RPE) were calculated based on the simulated gamma photons' average track length. The obtained results showed that the highest LAC values increased from 71.999 to 91.979 cm−1. Moreover, the thicker HVL decreased from 9.869 to 9.332 cm−1, increasing the Ag2O insertion ratio between 0 and 10 mol%, respectively. The mentioned data confirmed that substitution of the V2O5 by the Ag2O enhance the gamma-ray shielding capacity of the explored series of glass.