Articles
  • The role of Sb2O3 on the physical and structural properties of PbO-SiO2 glasses
  • Negin Allahmoradi, Saeid Baghshahi* and Masoud Rajabi
  • Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Facult of Engineering, Imam Khomeini International University, Qazvin, Iran
Abstract
Lead glasses are widely used in nuclear applications, particularly for shielding purposes. In this research, glasses with the general composition of 65PbO·(35-x)SiO2·xSb2O3, where x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were produced using the conventional method of melting and casting. The physical properties of the glasses were investigated using optical and electron microscopy, thermal analysis and FT-IR methods. The experiments showed that duo to phase segregation, the samples containing 4 and 5 molar of Sb2O3 were not completely glassy. The results revealed that with the rise of Sb2O3 content, the glass density increased from 6.33 to 6.95 g.cm−3. Based on the thermal and FT-IR analyses, with increasing the amount of Sb2O3, antimony entered the glass structure with the formation of Si-O-Sb bondings. Consequently, in lower amounts, Sb2O3 acted as fining agent, resulting in the reduction of the bubbles from about 1.8 to 0.7 vol.%, while when present in amounts exceeding 2 mole%, the bubble content slightly increased.

Keywords: Lead glass, Antimony addition, Glass structure, Fining agent, Physical properties.

This Article

  • 2017; 18(9): 691-695

    Published on Sep 30, 2017