Affiliations 

  • 1 Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Alexandria University, Alexandria 21511, Egypt
  • 2 Khalifa Medical Center, Abu-Dhabi 60843, United Arab Emirates
  • 3 Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Isra University, Amman 11622, Jordan
  • 4 Center for Applied Physics and Radiation Technologies, School of Engineering and Technology, Sunway University, Bandar Sunway 47500, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 5 Department of Physics, College of Khurma, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia
  • 6 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Taif University, Taif 21974, Saudi Arabia
Materials (Basel), 2021 Dec 19;14(24).
PMID: 34947471 DOI: 10.3390/ma14247878

Abstract

We prepared red clays by introducing different percentages of PbO, Bi2O3, and CdO. In order to understand how the introduction of these oxides into red clay influences its attenuation ability, the mass attenuation coefficient of the clays was experimentally measured in a lab using an HPGe detector. The theoretical shielding capability of the material present was obtained using XCOM to verify the accuracy of the experimental results. We found that the experimental and theoretical values agree to a very high degree of precision. The effective atomic number (Zeff) of pure red clay, and red clay with the three metal oxides was determined. The pure red clay had the lowest Zeff of the tested samples, which means that introducing any of these three oxides into the clay will greatly enhance its Zeff, and consequently its attenuation capability. Additionally, the Zeff for red clay with 10 wt% CdO is lower than the Zeff of red clay with 10 wt% Bi2O3 and PbO. We also prepared red clay using 10 wt% CdO nanoparticles and compared its attenuation ability with the red clay prepared with 10 wt% PbO, Bi2O3, and CdO microparticles. We found that the MAC of the red clay with 10 wt% nano-CdO was higher than the MAC of the clay with microparticle samples. Accordingly, nanoparticles could be a useful way to enhance the shielding ability of current radiation shielding materials.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.