Physicists have created new glasses to protect against radiation

An international team, which includes UrFU employees, has created new glasses that protect against X-ray and gamma radiation. The new components they have selected improve the performance of the samples and reduce the amount of lead in the composition.

Scientists have developed several glass samples. The best results were shown by glasses with the addition of borate-bismuth. A number of radiation-protective characteristics of glasses with the addition of borate-bismuth, in particular a half-attenuation layer and an average free path, are better than those of commercial analogs. A description of these samples is presented in the journal Scientific Reports. One of the latest results - glasses based on barium fluoride - was described by the team in Optic magazine.

“Gamma radiation is used in many industries. For example, in industry to detect defects in metal casting welds, in medicine for the treatment of cancerous tumors, in agriculture to extend the shelf life of products, in the space industry, and so on, says Karem Abdelazim Gaber Mahmud, Research Engineer at the Department of Nuclear Power Plants and renewable energy sources UrFU, employee of the Office of Nuclear Materials (Egypt). "Gamma radiation has a significant penetrating power, so we are faced with the task of creating a material that would provide maximum protection and the necessary safety for workers."

Today, lead and phosphate are mainly used in radiation protective glasses. Due to its high density, lead is one of the most effective protection against gamma radiation, but its disadvantages are its toxicity and significant weight of the finished product (the weight of glass can reach several hundred kilograms). Therefore, scientists around the world select the optimal composition, components that would help to lighten the weight of the glass, maintain its transparency, and reduce the thickness and cost. The main problem is that after exceeding a certain percentage of additives, glasses lose their transparency, just as after absorbing a certain dose of radiation. Therefore, on the one hand, it is necessary to minimize the volume of lead, while maintaining the protective properties, and on the other, to extend the shelf life of the product, its transparency. Scientists from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Malaysia, China, Egypt are most actively engaged in research and selection of new components.

“Protective glasses began to be created in the late 1940s, in the 1950s, during the formation of nuclear power. Then in England, America, Russia they were solving the problem of monitoring radiation-hazardous work. We came up with several options for glasses with different additives, but everywhere the basic components are lead and phosphate. The current tendency is to select such a composition in order to minimize the amount of lead, or better - to replace it with another metal, ”explains Oleg Tashlykov, associate professor of the Department of Nuclear Power Plants and Renewable Energy Sources of UrFU.

Note that the protective properties of glass samples were experimentally tested at the Institute of Reactor Materials of the Rosatom State Corporation (Zarechny, Sverdlovsk Region). The next stage is further research of parameters, improvement and optimization of the composition, commercialization of technology.

Ural Federal University (UrFU) is one of the leading universities in Russia with a hundred-year history. Located in Yekaterinburg, the capital of the 2023 World Summer Student Games. In the Year of Science and Technology, she will take part in the competition under the Priority-2030 program. The university performs the functions of the project office of the Ural interregional world-class scientific and educational center (REC).

Source: http://www.glassnews.info/