Impacts of BaO additives on the mechanical, optical and radiation shielding properties of BaO-K2O- CoO-Al2O3-B2O3 glasses

This article reports the influence of barium oxide (BaO) on mechanical and radiation protection characteristics of BaO-K2O- CoO-Al2O3-B2O3 glass. The obtained results confirmed the enhanced the elastic moduli, confirming a high cross-linked density, high impact resistance, and toughness of the network, with the good mechanical stability of samples with further additives of BaO. In detail, with increasing BaO contents, it is observed that the shear modulus increased from 33.8 GPa reaching 37.7 GPa (increased by about 11.5%), while the longitudinal modulus enhanced from 100.5 GPa up to 117.4 GPa (enhanced by ? 16.8%), besides Young's modulus augmented from 84.4 GPa to 95.3 GPa (augmented by ? 13%), and bulk modulus is increased from 55.4 GPa reaching 67.2 GPa (increased by ? 21.3%). These enhancements in the elastic moduli are attributed to the increased tetrahedral units (BO4 and AlO4 units) inside the glass matrix with increasing BaO additives. On the other hand, with increasing BaO, optical band gaps increase from 3.07 eV to 3.58 eV, and ligand field strength values decrease from 3494 cm(- 1) to 3273 cm(- 1). Furthermore, the addition of BaO reduces the linear and nonlinear refractive indices. Moreover, the obtained radiation shielding parameters were studied and compared to those of well-known shielding materials. The comparison confirmed that the glass specimen with the highest barium oxide content has better radiation shielding ability than others and is suitable for radiation shielding applications.

Automated summary

This article reports the influence of barium oxide (BaO) on the mechanical and radiation protection characteristics of BaO-K2O-CoO-Al2O3-B2O3 glass. The results show that the addition of BaO enhances the elastic moduli and impact resistance of the glass. Furthermore, it increases the optical band gaps and decreases the linear and nonlinear refractive indices.