Physical, elastic-mechanical and radiation shielding properties of antimony borate–lithium in the form B2O3-CaO-Li2O-Sb2O3: Experimental, theoretical and simulation approaches.

Role of Sb2O3 on physical, elastic-mechanical, and gamma-ray protection ability of (70-x)B2O3-15CaO-15Li2O-xSb2O3: x = 0, 1, 3, 5, and 8 mol% glass systems was investigated through this report. The density was improved from 2.410 to 2.780 g.cm3 associated with a simultaneous increase in the molar volume from 25.575 to 28.556 cm3/mol as the mol% of Sb increased in the samples. In addition, the oxygen packing density (OPD) and oxygen molar volume (OMV) were decreased and increased, respectively, as a direct response to this increase in Sb mol%. The Gibbs free energy increases from 32.22 to 33.796 kJ/cm3, while Young's modulus decreases from 43.17 to 41.23 GPa. Therefore, Poisson's ratio (σ) values were varied from 0.4069 to 0.4153. Vicker's hardness was improved by enhancing Sb2O3 concentration. The observed trend of the mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) parameter was followed as: MACSb0 < MAC Sb1 < MAC Sb3 < MAC Sb5 < MAC Sb8 with values in the range of 4.176–0.018, 5.907–0.019, 9.032–0.021, 11.775–0.0227, 15.315–0.0245 cm2/g for samples encoded as Sb0-Sb8, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]