Investigation of bismuth silicate glass system modified by vanadium and copper cations for structural and gamma-ray shielding properties

A new type of modified bismuth silicate glass has been manufactured with vanadium and copper cations in a traditional rapid cooling method. FTIR spectra have been used to identify the different structural units of this glass. The spectral analysis showed the presence of BiO3 and BiO6 as basic structural units in all studied samples and the presence of bismuth as a former the glass network with silica. The radiation shielding properties were explored using a narrow beam transmission method in 0.662, 1.173 and 1.33 MeV. The effective atomic numbers for the sample containing the highest CuO ratio showed higher energy values than the other studied samples studied. The mean free path of the prepared glasses has been compared to other commercial radiation shielding. The comparison indicates that the glasses produced are more efficient in relation to radiotherapy compared to conventional commercial radiation protection glass. Microhardness measurements were made of the glass recorded at load at 300 g. The replacement of CuO by V2O5 has been found to increase the cross-link density in addition to the observed difference in the atomic mass of Cu and V, thus increasing the hardness.