Bioactive glasses and direct effect of increased K2O additive for nuclear shielding performance: A comparative investigation

This study aimed to provide a large-scale investigation on direct effect of K2O additive nuclear radiation shielding properties of calcium phosphate based bioactive quaternary P2O5-CaO-Na2O-K2O glasses. A gamma ray attenuation setup has been modeled in MCNPX (v-2.6-0) simulation code using Monte Carlo simulation technique. Next, all the bioactive glasses have been defined considering their chemical properties and material densities, respectively. The mass attenuation coefficients (MAC) have been calculated by using MCNPX code and obtained results have been used for determination of another vital gamma-ray shielding parameters. Moreover, a detailed calculation has been done for determination of exposure buildup factor (EBF) and energy absorption buildup factor (EABF) of investigated bioactive glasses which should be considered as important parameters for interaction properties of ionizing radiation with material environment. In addition, effective removal cross sections for fast neutrons have been calculated. To compare our results, obtained HVL values of the present investigation have been compared with copper oxide and cobalt oxide substituted bioactive glasses. Among the investigated bioactive glasses, the maximum MAC values were reported for PCNK60 sample with higher K2O additive. It can be concluded that chemical structure of additive materials in the bioactive glasses is strongly related with the radiation attenuation properties of bioactive glasses.