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.