In this work, polymer composites of high density polyethylene reinforced by
micro-sized and nanosized cadmium oxide, lead oxide, and a mixture of both
with filler weight fraction of 30% were prepared by compression molding
technique and characterized by scanning electron microscope. This
investigation aims to present a comparative study between cadmium oxide and
lead oxide according to their sizes as fillers in high density polyethylene
polymeric matrix for gamma-radiation shielding applications. The mass and
linear attenuation coefficients of the investigated composites were measured
as a function of g-ray energies ranging from 59.53 keV to 1408.01 keV using
standard radioactive point sources (241Am, 133Ba, 137Cs, 60Co, and 152Eu).
The measurements were made with a narrow beam geometry setup using a well
calibrated hyper pure germanium cylindrical detector. The theoretical values
of the mass attenuation coefficients were evaluated using the XCOM program
database. The experimental results demonstrated that, according to the filler
size, cadmium oxide composite is better as a gamma absorber in the energy
region less than 81 keV, while lead oxide composite is better in the energy
region greater than 81 keV. Moreover, for the same chemical structure and
weight fraction of the composite, nano fillers show better attenuation
performance than micro fillers in high density polyethylene based radiation
shielding material.
Comparative Study between Lead Oxide and Lead Nitrate Polymer as Gamma-Radiation Shielding Materials
