Study gamma radiation protection properties of silicon rubber-bismuth oxide nanocomposites: Synthesis, characterization and simulation

Here, by use of Silicon rubber as polymeric matrix and Bismuth oxide as fillers, composite materials are fabricated up to 70 wt% and their gamma ray attenuation is studied. Due to the fair solubility of Bismuth oxide particles in polymer matrix, the solution intercalation method is used for nanocomposite fabrication. The applied source for radiation attenuation test is 241Am with photon energies 59.5 KeV. The experimental results show that the fabricated samples have high performance in low energy X ray shielding. For example, the 70% wt sample with the thickness 0.215cm is able to absorb 82% of photons of 241Am. To verify the experimental results, the attenuation process is simulated by MCNP-4C code and it is found that the simulation coincide with the experiment.