Abstract:
In this paper, high purity boron carbide samples were irradiated by 60Co gamma radioisotope source (0.27 Gy/s dose rate) with 50, 100, 150 and 200 irradiation hours at room-temperature. The unirradiated and irradiated boron carbide samples were heated from 30◦C to 1000◦C at a heating rate of 5◦C/min under the argon gas atmosphere of flow rate 20 ml/min. Thermogravimetric (TG) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) were carried out in order to understand the thermodynamic kinetics of boron carbide samples. The weight kinetics, activation energy and specific heat capacity of the unirradiated and irradiated boron carbide samples were examined in two parts, T ≤ 650◦C and T ≥ 650◦C, according to the temperature. The dynamic of quantitative changes in both ranges is different depending on the irradiation time. While the phase transition of unirradiated boron carbide samples occurs at 902◦C, this value shifts upto 940◦C in irradiated samples depending on the irradiation time. The activation energy of the unirradiated boron carbide samples decreased from 214 to 46 J/mol in the result of 200h gamma irradiation. The reduction of the activation energy after the irradiation compared to the initial state shows that the dielectric properties of the irradiated boron carbide samples have been improved. After the gamma irradiation, two energy barrier states depending on the absorption dose of samples were formed in the irradiated samples. The first and second energy barriers occurred in 0.56–0.80 and 0.23–0.36 eV energy intervals, respectively. The existence of two energy levels in the irradiated boron carbide indicates that the point defects are at deep levels, close to the valence band.
Keywords: Boron carbide; gamma irradiation; thermodynamics kinetics; heat flow rate; activation energy.
