Assessment of the usability conditions of Sb 2O 3–PbO–B 2O 3 glasses for shielding purposes in some medical radioisotope and a wide gamma- ray energy spectrum

Abstract

We report some fundamental gamma-ray shielding properties and individual transmission factors (TFs) of five distinct glass samples with a nominal composition of xSb2O3·(40 − x)PbO·60B2O3·0.5CuO and (where; 0 ≤ x ≤ 40 mol%). Phy-X/PSD and MCNPX (version 2.7.0) Monte Carlo code are utilized to determine several critical para- meters, such as cross-sections, attenuation coefficients, half and tenth value layers, build-up factors, and TFs. A general transmission setup is designed using basic require- ments. Accordingly, TFs are evaluated for several medical radioisotopes. Next, the gamma-ray shielding parameters and TFs are assessed together in terms of providing the validity of the findings. Our results showed that there is a positive contribution of increasing Sb2O3 amount in the glass matrix owing its direct effect to the density increment as well. This positive effect on gamma-ray shielding proper- ties is also observed for decreasing mean free path values from S1 to S5 samples. The exposure build-up factor (EBF) and energy absorption build-up factor (EABF) values, increasing the quantity of Sb2O3 supplementation, resulted in a general reduction in EBF and EABF values (i.e., from 0.5 to 40 mfp). When the quantity of Sb2O3 rises from S1 to S5, the collision rate of incoming gamma rays in glass samples increases significantly. The TF figures reveal that S5 showed the least transmission behavior across all the above-men- tioned studied glass thicknesses. It can be concluded that increasing the Sb2O3 additive is a beneficial and monotonic technique, when the gamma-ray shielding qualities or TF values must be further enhanced.