Gamma-ray shielding characteristics of flexible silicone tungsten composites

Silicone being a hybrid elastomer is well known for its excellent thermal and mechanical properties, chemical resistance, compatibility with organic and inorganic fillers, nontoxicity, and flexibility. As the reported literature on silicone tungsten composite is rare, thus, a complete possible spectrum of silicone tungsten composites series with tungsten loading of 0-88.1 %wt has been fabricated by RTV method and studied as a flexible gamma shielding material. Flexible silicone/tungsten composite formulations containing different weight percentages of tungsten powder (0, 30.1, 47.8, 59.8, 68.1, and 88.1 wt %) were developed by the room-temperature vulcanization route. Two lead collimators with diameters of 0.6 cm were used to make a narrow beam geometry for gamma rays emitted from a¹³⁷Cs (gamma-ray energy of 662 keV) point source. Uncollided flux was measured with a NaI(Tl) scintillation detector enclosed in lead shielding to reduce the background radiation level. The measured mass attenuation coefficient for our composites with 88.1 wt % tungsten was 0.1035 cm²/g, which is nearly 3.5% higher than that of commercially available silicone/tungsten composites named T-Flex (nearly 0.095 cm²/g) containing the same tungsten loading. Similarly, superior half value layers (HVL) of our composites with 88.1 % wt loading of tungsten i.e 1.01 cm versus 1.27 cm for the reported T-Flex counterpart with additional advantage of insitu fabrication on complex geometries. It was also found that the effectiveness of gamma-ray shielding increases with increase in density of the composites, which is due to the increase in the weight percent of tungsten powder. Our material will have applications as shielding material for both mobile and stationary radiation sources and it can also be used as fabrication material for gloves, safety shoes, coats, etc. to protect workers in a radiation environment.