Analysis of radiation attenuation properties for Polyester/Li2WO4 composites

Abstract

This study presents gamma-shielding characteristics of Li2WO4 doped polyester composites. In the study, unsaturated polyester was chosen as resin, Li2WO4 was chosen as filling material, cobalt octoate 6% (CO-6) and methyl ethyl ketone peroxide (MEKP) were respectively chosen as accelerator and initiators. Four different samples with 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% Li2WO4 were prepared and the prepared samples were tested by using 22Na, 54Mn, 57Co, 60Co, 133Ba, 137Cs, 152Eu and 241Am radioactive point-isotropic sources and one gamma spectrometer system based HPGe detector. The experimental results were obtained with the help of the transmission geometry between 59.5 and 1408.0 keV photon energies. For the validation of the results, the test results were compared with the results obtained by WinXCOM computer program and both results showed good agreement. It was observed that the mass attenuation coefficients lie within the range of 0.3042–0.0558 cm2 g-1 for Li2WO4 (5%), 0.4074–0.0556 cm2 g-1 for Li2WO4 (10%), 0.5042–0.0555 cm2 g-1 for Li2WO4 (15%) and 0.5909–0.0553 cm2 g-1 for Li2WO4 (20%) in the energy range of 59.5–1408.0 keV. Comparing to the other Li2WO4 (5%, 10%, 15%) contents, Li2WO4 (20%) was found to have the higher radiation shielding property. This shows that the radiation protection performance of unsaturated polyester increases when Li2W04 is added as filler. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd