Micro-hardness and gamma-ray attenuation properties of lead iron phosphate glasses

For safe immobilization of nuclear waste, lead-iron phosphate glasses are promising as high-level commercial and defense materials. In this research article, the compositional, elastic, and gamma shielding properties of the glasses containing (80 - x)P2O5- xFe(2)O(3)-20PbO with x = 20, 25, 30, 35 mol% were reported. The compositional and elastic parameters including the micro-hardness of the investigated glass samples were obtained based on Makishima-Mackenzie's theory (MM-theory) and R model. We found that the deviation between these two methods decreased as Fe2O3 concentrations increased from 20 to 35 mol %. Additionally, gamma-ray attenuation properties of the P2O5- Fe2O3-PbO glass system were evaluated using Geant4 simulation toolkit. The simulation results were compared with the theoretical ones extracted from Py-MLBUF software. The obtained results reveal that the MACs of the glasses vary from 0.030 to 40.014 cm(2)/g for PFP-A, from 0.031 to 41.502 cm(2)/g for PFP-B, 0.031 to 43 cm(2)/g for PFP-C and from 0.031 to 44.400 cm(2)/g for PFP-D. Maximum Z(eff) values of present glasses are obtained at 0.10 MeV whereas minimum Z(eff) values are obtained at 1.5 MeV. Finally, the fundamental gamma-ray attenuation properties of the P2O5- Fe2O3-PbO glass system are found to be comparable with those of traditional and commercial radiation shields such as RS-253-G18 and RS-360 commercial glasses, ordinary concrete, barite concrete and TBZP10 from scientific literature. The results indicated that MFPs of the investigated glasses are lower than those of RS-360 glass, but they are higher than those of barite concrete and TBZP10.

Automated summary

Lead-iron phosphate glasses show promise for safe immobilization of nuclear waste as high-level materials. The research investigated the compositional, elastic, and gamma shielding properties of glasses with varying Fe2O3 concentrations, finding a decrease in deviation between two methods as Fe2O3 concentrations increased. The glasses' gamma-ray attenuation properties were comparable to traditional commercial radiation shields and concrete.