Effect of strontium oxide on radiation shielding features and elastic properties on zinc borotellurite glass system
Introduction
In the last several years, glasses based on two or more formers such as zinc borotellurite based glass have successfully evoked considerable interest among researchers to explore their properties and applications. The remarkable characteristics of zinc borotellurite glass are said to be influenced by its hosts which are the tellurium oxide (TeO2) and boron oxide (B2O3). According to Mahraz et al. (2013) (Mahraz et al., 2013), these two hosts are better than other hosts such as fluorite and silicate, as they are able to improve the mechanical strength, chemical durability, and thermal stability of the glassy material. In addition, the chemicals of these two hosts can also be an important reason to improve several characteristics of the given glassy material. On the other hand, many researchers currently are exploring the properties of zinc borotellurite glass by introducing dopants towards it. The dopants that are commonly used usually came from two different categories which are the transition metal (TM) ions or the rare-earth (RE) ions (Mahraz et al., 2013).
For the purpose of this research, strontium oxide (SrO) was chosen as a dopant in order to identify its influence on the elastic features of zinc borotellurite glass. Strontium oxide was selected because currently there is limited number of existing research related to its effect on the zinc borotellurite glass network. Strontium oxide (SrO) is a strongly basic, colourless oxide that will produce elemental strontium when it is heated with aluminium in a vacuum. It is also an element that is well-acknowledged for being thermally steady, making it a convenient for glass, optic, and ceramic applications. In the 1970s, one of the major applications of strontium oxide was in the production of cathode ray tubes that were used in colour televisions to block X-ray emissions. It was also used as the carbonate in special glass for screens of television and visual display units. Some research also reported that strontium is useful in medical-related applications such as matters. enhancing bone formation as it exhibits similar properties to those of calcium and barium (Mahraz et al., 2013).
Essentially, a zinc borotellurite glass that is containing with strontium oxide is composed of various elements which are zinc oxide (ZnO), boron oxide (B2O3), tellurium oxide (TeO2) and of course, the dopant itself, strontium oxide (SrO). For centuries, zinc oxide (ZnO) has become one of the most crucial industrial materials and it has gained a lot of interest among manufacturers. This is due to the combination of its physical properties such as high temperature stability, greater electrical and thermal conductivity as well as optical absorption in the ultra-violet. In addition, its chemical characteristics such as durability at neutral pH and its techno-economic features such as abundancy and affordable cost, has led to its wide range of application in many industrie (Usman et al., 2018).
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is also claimed to have the ability to stabilise the components which is added to it (Usman et al., 2018). Therefore, adding zinc oxide (ZnO) into a borotellurite glass network system is said to be able to ascend the uniformity of the glass, to some extent. Furthermore, adding italso increase the glass construction capability and provide small rates of crystallization in the glass system. The reason is the capability of zinc oxide (ZnO) to enter the structure of the glass matrix (Usman et al., 2018).
Another element in the glass system is Tellurium oxide (TeO2). This particular element is known for being thermally stable and is also considered to be an element that is appropriate for glass, optic and ceramic applications. Tellurium oxide-based glasses have also been gaining scientific and technological interest among researchers in recent years due to the unique properties that they exhibit. Small melting temperature, better thermal and chemical dutability, slow crystallization rates, good mechanical strength, small phonon energy and big linear and non-linear refractive index are some of their unique properties (Faznny et al., 2017).
According to Faznny et al. (2017) (Faznny et al., 2017), all the unique characteristics of a tellurite-based glass makes it one of the best elements that can be applied in synthesizing photonics devices. In addition, due to its large third order non-linear susceptibility, tellurium oxide-based glass can also be considered as an assuring material for the use in optical amplifiers. Other potential applications of these type of glass are in thermal imaging, fibre laser production, infrared laser power delivery, laser radar windows, aerial reconnaissance, as well as surveillance and many more (Sayyed, 2016).
Boron or boric oxide (B2O3) is another element of the glass network and can usually be found in vitreous (amorphic) form. It can be crystallized after extensive annealing and has also been used as a flux in preparing many types of glass and porcelain enamels. Due to its good rare-earth (RE) ion solubility and hardness, Boric oxide (B2O3) is also known as one of the best elements that can be applied during glass fabrication in order to balance the formation of the glass. Other properties of boric oxide (B2O3) include small melting temperature and big phonon energy (Sayyed, 2016).
Consequently, for this study, the benefits, specifically in terms of the impact of strontium oxide on the features of zinc borotellurite glasses were investigated, of which several glass samples with the chemical composition of [(TeO2)0.7 (B2O3)0.3)0.7 (ZnO)0.3]1-x(SrO)x and different molar fraction, x = 0.01,0.02, 0.03, 0.04 and 0.05 were fabricated. The characterization of the glass samples was done by conducting radiation shielding, physical and structural analysis upon it. This study also emphasized on a thorough research about the elastic properties of the glass system, apart from its physical and structural properties.
El-Mallawany et al., (2006) (El-Mallawany et al., 2006a) stated that the elastic properties of a material are very helpful in understanding its structure as they are related directly to the interatomic potentials. The parameters of elastic attributes that were focused throughout this research are the longitudinal and shear velocities as well as the deduction of the other elastic constants such as the elastic moduli, Poisson's ratio, microhardness, softening temperature and Debye temperature (El-Mallawany et al., 2006a).
Furthermore, radiation shielding properties were investigated/studied via different theoretical, experimental and simulation methods. Many studies are carried out to determine photon and neutron shielding properties of various glasses in the scientific literature. Alfryyan et al. (2022) (Alfryyan et al., 2022) examined radiation, charged particle and neutron shielding properties of Sm3+ doped borosilicate glass systems with Na2O, PbO and ZnO and their results indicated that SBNPZS4 glass possessed the smallest HVLs and MFPs and the greatest fast neutron removal cross section therefore it had better photon and neutron shielding properties therefore it can be developed as photon, neutron and charged particle shielding matter. Al-Buriahi et al. (2022a) (Al-Buriahi et al., 2022a) investigated the effect of several oxides on the radiation shielding capabilities of CFCBPC bioactive glasses and they reported that CFCBPC1 which had Ba2+ owned better radiation attenuation capabilities. Alharshan et al. (2022) (Alharshan et al., 2022) studied radiation protection of P2O5–SrO–Sb2O3 glasses and their results revealed that the LACs of studied glasses enhanced with increasing of Sb2O3 and with decreasing of P2O5. Al-Buriahi et al. (2022b) (Al-Buriahi et al., 2022b) studied radiation attenuation characteristics of tellurite glasses with Li2O and MoO3 contents and they announced that the HVLs of LTM glasses declined with ascending of Li2O. Alshahrani et al. (2021) (Alshahrani et al., 2021) investigated photon, neutron and/or charged particle shielding performance of tellurite glasses with Sb2O3/V2O5 and they notified that the HVLs of studied glasses descended with increment of Sb2O3 content. Aloraini et al. (2021) (Aloraini et al., 2021) examined radiation shielding competence of strontium-borate-tellurite glass specimens employing experimental and/or theoretical approaches and they notified that radiation shielding ability of such specimens enhanced as TeO2 content ascended.
The elastic moduli (as well as the structure properties) have a strong relation with the shielding properties in the terms of the atomic molar volume. Moreover, the density of the glass plays a key role in both the elastic and shieling features. Therefore, the main goal of this research focuses more on exploring the effect of the strontium oxide with tellurite glass system on the radiation shielding features and elastic properties of the glass materials.
Section snippets
Density and molar volume
One of the simplest physical characteristics that can be obtained is the density of solids. Density can be considered as a highly informative property that can relatively define the structure of a material with high accuracy, including the structure of different types of glasses. It is also used as a tool to measure the structural compactness of a material. Chanshetti et al. (2011) (Chanshetti et al., 2011) explained that the density of a glass can be calculated based on the glass composition
Methodology
The technique that was used to synthesize or prepare the zinc borotellurite glass system is the conventional melt-quenching technique, of which most of the raw materials used are in the form of oxide powders. Before preparing the glass samples, the weight of each chemical powder was calculated in order to produce a 13 g glass sample. The chemical powders utilized were Tellurium (IV) Oxide, TeO2 (Alfa Aesar, 99.99%), Boron Oxide, B2O3 (Alfa Aesar, 97.5%), Zinc Oxide, ZnO (Alfa Aesar, 99.99%) and
X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy
X-ray Diffraction Spectroscopy (XRD) is a non-destructive analytical method that is commonly used to analyze the structure of a material since the XRD spectra exhibited by the material will explain whether the material is made up of either an amorphous or a crystalline phase (Fares et al., 2014). For this study, the XRD pattern of the prepared strontium-doped zinc borotellurite glass samples with different molar fraction of x is between 0.01 and 0.05 was analyzed where all the XRD patterns
Conclusions
In this study, a total of five (5) zinc borotellurite glass samples that were doped with strontium oxide were prepared by utilizing the conventional melt-quenching techniques. The chemical composition of the prepared glass samples can be presented with the general formula [(TeO2)0.7(B2O3)0.3)0.7(ZnO)0.3]1-x(SrO)X and each of the samples composed of various molar fractions which are x = 0.01, 0.02, 0.0.3, 0.04 and 0.05. Several analyses were conducted to investigate the influence of the
Author statement
Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis - Jamila S. Alzahrani, S.N. Nazrin, Canel Eke, Imen Kebaili, M.S. Al-Buriahi.
Funding acquisition - Jamila S. Alzahrani.
Investigation, Methodology - Jamila S. Alzahrani, S.N. Nazrin, Canel Eke, Imen Kebaili, M.S. Al-Buriahi.
Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization - Jamila S. Alzahrani, S.N. Nazrin, Canel Eke, Imen Kebaili, M.S. Al-Buriahi.
Writing - original draft, Writing - review and editing) - Jamila
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The authors express their gratitude to Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University Researchers Supporting Project (Grant No. PNURSP2022R48), Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia for funding this work through Research Groups Program under grant number R.G. P2/173/43.
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