Experimental study of yttrium-based ceramic systems containing nanomaterials for gamma radiation protecting applications

This study reports the structure and the radiation shielding performances of yttrium-based oxide ceramic (YBCO) superconductor added with different nanomaterials including barium titanate nanoparticles (BaTiO3), titanium oxide (TiO2) nanotubes, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The samples are coded as follows: Sample 1 (pristine YBCO sample), Sample 2 (YBCO co-added with TiO2 and CNTs) and Sample 3 (YBCO co-added with BaTiO3 and CNTs). The crystal structure was examined using the XRD technique. The crystallite size DW-H, as well as the lattice strain L-s, were calculated using Williamson and Hall (W-H) approach. DW-H was found to decrease from 93.67 nm for sample 1 to 61.87 nm and 53.30 nm for samples 2 and 3, respectively. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) was measured. The LAC values at 0.122 MeV are equal to 4.959 cm(-1), 5.020 cm(-1), and 5.482 cm(-1) for Sample1, Sample 2, and Sample 3, respectively. At all tested energies, Sample 1 has a lower LAC compared to Sample 2 and Sample 3, which suggests that the used co-additives improve the radiation shielding properties of the YBCO ceramic. From the attenuation value layers, we found that the Sample 3 ceramic composite has a better attenuation performance than Samples 1 and 2, and the half-value layers at 0.356 MeV are equal to 0.904, 0.833 and 0.765 cm for Samples 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

Automated summary

This study reports the structure and radiation shielding performances of YBCO superconductor added with different nanomaterials. The results show that the addition of nanomaterials can improve the radiation shielding properties of the YBCO ceramic.