This work investigated the potential for shielding by calculating and examining the ionizing radiation (gamma-rays plus neutrons) attenuation features of a glass structure (70-x) B2O3-5 SiO2-10 Li2O-5Bi2O3-10ZnO-x CeO2 with a value of x = 0.0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0 mol% designated as \(\text{Ce}-0.0\) , \(\text{Ce}-0.25\) , \(\text{Ce}-0.5\) , \(\text{Ce}-0.75\) , and \(\text{Ce}-1.0\) glasses, respectively. The amorphous nature was confirmed by x-ray diffraction (XRD). The density measurement rose from 2.9517 to 3.1526 g/cm3 when the cerium quantity grew from 0.0 mol% to 1.0 mol%. The oxygen packing density (OPD) rose in the opposite direction to the oxygen mole volume (OMV) with respect to Ce ions mol%. Energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) in conjunction with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) demonstrated the creation of homogenous glassy matrices. Differential scanning calorimetry revealed that, as the CeO2 content increased, the glass transition temperature (Tg) increased. The PHY-X, plus X-COM, computer programs were used to estimate the gamma-ray transmission attenuation coefficient in the photon energy range of 0.03–2 MeV. The glass linear attenuation (GLA) values were arranged in the order \(\text{Ce}\) -1.0 (GLA) > \(\text{Ce}\) -0.75 (GLA) > \(\text{Ce}\) -0.50 (GLA) > \(\text{Ce}\) -0.25 (GLA) > \(\text{Ce}\) -0.0 (GLA). The \(\text{Ce}\) -0.0 glass sample had the highest half (GHV), tenth value layer GTV , and mean free path GMF among all the prepared glasses. It was found that the effective atomic number (GZef) of all the prepared glasses had the maximum value at 30 keV equal to 56.86, 56.85, 56.84, 56.83, and 56.82 for Ce-0.0:Ce-1.0, respectively. Ce-x glass probably has better neutron shielding properties than commercially available glasses. The application of the CeO2 reinforcement showed significant radiation attenuation properties. Using Tauc’s plots, the optical direct and indirect band widths were found, and the direct and indirect band-gap measurements, respectively, ranged from 2.638 to 2.136 eV and from 2.512 to 1.874 eV. The Urbach energy jumped from 0.3372 to 0.862 eV as the quantity of CeO2 increased.
