Lead oxides filled isophthalic resin polymer composites for gamma radiation shielding applications

Particulate polymer composites of isophthalic resin (ISO) filled with three lead oxides (PbO, PbO2 and Pb3O4) were prepared with different filler concentrations and investigated for radiation shielding properties of gamma rays from Ba-133, Cs-137 and Co-60 point sources. Among the three composite combinations, ISO+PbO composites yield better density values than the other two due to high density of the filler which contains large lead fraction and fine dispersability in the, polymer matrix. Dispersion and particle size of filler were also studied by morphological analysis of the composites using Scanning Electron Microscope. Attenuation coefficients were found to increase with the increased filler content in the composites. ISO+PbO composites have found to outperform than ISO+PbO2 and ISO+Pb3O4 composites. Excellent performance of ISO+PbO composites can be attributed to their high lead content as well as fine filler dispersion in the polymer matrix. Further, these ISO+PbO composites when compared to conventional shielding materials perform as strong contenders to barite, steel and concrete at low gamma ray energies. Even at higher gamma ray energies considered, they perform satisfactorily and are very much comparable to steel and concrete.