Applied Journal of Physical Science

Concrete and lead-based aggregates are communal shielding materials against penetrating radiations, X-rays and gamma photons. Conversely, lead is expensive and chemically hazardous, and concrete ages become opaque. The continuous search for alternative radiation shielding materials has been motivated. Nigerian small-scale mining has produced mineral ores that contain glass sand and bismuth ore. Analysis revealed that 85.20% of the bismuth ore and glass sand was composed of 78.99% silica. Glass sand-sourced silica was used to create the innovative glass series, which also contained bismutite and barium oxide as dopants to change the glass's desired characteristics. The glass series was fabricated using the melt quenching method, having the empirical chemical formula (100-y) {85[25(glasssand) + 35B₂O₃+40Na₂CO₃] + 15BaO}y[Bi₂O₂CO₃], where. The novel glass was characterized using measurements. The density of the glass increased from 2.919 to 3.532 g/cm³. The refractive index value range of the glass system is 2.23-2.49. The glasses were confirmed amorphous as the XRD pattern revealed, whereas the FTIR analysis showed the presence of BO₃ and SiO₄ structural units. The Gamma-Ray experiment was carried out on all glass samples using two radioactive gamma point sources, namely, Caesium-137 and Co-60, the results show that the LAC decreases and increases at different weight percentages ranging from 5 to 25%, GLS25 have the highest LAC while the least LAC was observed at GLS15 for the two gamma source. MAC of the glass system, as the content of Bi₂O₂CO₃ changes from 5 to 25 wt. %, the values of MAC at energy (661KeV) and energy (1235KeV) show a similar decreasing and increasing behaviour as exhibited by LAC. The observed increase in MAC of the prepared glasses might be linked with an increase in glass effective density as well as mass density, which thereby results in a high probability of photon interaction. The values of HVL and TVL for Caesium-137 increase from 2.449954 to 5.344431 cm then decrease to 2.046755 cm (HVL) and 8.138571 cm to 17.75381cm to 6.799175 cm (TVL), respectively. These results show that the samples doped with a greater wt. % of Bi₂O₂CO₃ have the lowest HVL and TVL values for Caesium-137 and Cobalt-60. A drop in HVL and TVL for the two gamma sources is a direct result of a density increase. HVL and TVL values are lower in good shielding materials. The MFP for both Cobalt-60 and Caesium-137 is comparable to HVL and TVL. With the exception of GLS15, which has the highest MFP (8.64259 cm) for Caesium-137 and the lowest MFP (2.952844 cm) for Cobalt-60, the MFP values decrease as the amount of Bi₂O₂CO₃ increases. It also has the greatest LAC and density values among the created glass samples. It is shown that the innovative glasses have higher performance in radiation shields.