Synthesis and characterization of vanadium(V) oxide reinforced calcium- borate glasses: Experimental assessments on Al2O3/BaO2/ZnO contributions

This study aimed to synthesize and characterize novel calcium borate glasses based on nominal compositions of 55B2O3-35CaO-(10-x)Al2O3-xV2O5, 55B2O3-35CaO-(10-x)BaO2-xV2O5 and 55B2O3-35CaO-(10-x)ZnO-xV2O5 (where x; 0.5 and 1 mole%). Experimental methods were used to determine the optical, structural, physical, and nuclear radiation shielding properties. Density values of the synthesized glasses were measured between 2.5681 g/cm3 and 3.0231 g/cm3. All glasses exhibit a transmittance characteristic start in the visible region. The transmittance starts at approximately 370 nm and this value shifts up to 420 nm. Moreover, neutron and gammaray shielding properties of all glasses were measured using experimental methods. Our findings showed that ZnO and V2O5 substitution was more effective than other substitution types (i.e., Al2O3/V2O5, BaO2/V2O5) in terms of optical band gap values. Our findings also showed that BCBV0.5 sample with the highest optical band gap has superior neutron and gamma-ray shielding properties. It can be concluded that substituting ZnO and V2O5 is a more effective method of increasing the crucial neutron and gamma-ray shielding characteristics of calcium borate glasses.