Experimental Comparison of PbO and BaO Addition Effect on Gamma Ray Shielding Performance of Epoxy Polymer

This study was devoted to investigate the gamma ray shielding abilities of the epoxy composites prepared by using two different reinforcing materials: barium oxide and lead oxide. The Epoxy/PbO and Epoxy/BaO composites were produced by using 10 wt.%, 20 wt.%, and 40 wt.% reinforcing materials to obtain low weight radiation shielders. The heaviness of the samples were compared with some conventional shielding materials such as lead, steel, concrete etc. The gamma ray shielding performance of the pure epoxy and the composites were measured experimentally by using NaI(Tl) detector. In the experiments, Ba-133 point radioactive source was also utilized as a gamma ray source with the 81 keV and 356 keV energies. As the gamma ray shielding parameters of the composites, the mass attenuation coefficient, half layer value and tenth layer value thicknesses and mean free path distance were considered. After comparison of the related parameters of the PbO and BaO added epoxy composites, it was revealed that the gamma radiation shielding performance of the PbO added epoxy composite can also be obtained by adding BaO to the epoxy. However, to achieve the same performance, BaO should be added twice as much as the PbO additive percentage. On the other hand, it was determined that 40 wt.% BaO added epoxy composite exhibits a better radiation shielding performance than steel, concrete and Gd2O3 nanoparticle added epoxy composite for the photons with 81 keV and 356 keV energies. Thus, a lightweight and non-toxic gamma-ray shielding material can be produced by using an epoxy/BaO composite