Detection of new polymer materials as gamma-ray-shielding materials

Mass attenuation coefficients (µm), total atomic cross-sections (σt), molar extinction coefficients (), electronic cross-sections (σe), effective atomic numbers (Zeff) and electron densities (Neff) have been computed for few nylons that are polymers, namely, nylon 6 (C6H11ON), nylon 1,1 (C11H21ON), nylon 6,6 (C12H22O2N2), nylon 6,9 (C15H28O2N2), nylon 6,10 (C16H30O2N2) and nylon 6,12 (C18H34O2N2) using narrow beam good geometry set-up. In the present investigation, radio-nuclides 57CO, 133Ba, 137Cs, Co57, Ba133, Cs137, Na22, Mn54 and Co60 emitting energies 122, 356, 511, 662, 840, 1170, 1275 and 1330 keV have been counted by a NaI (Tl) detector coupled with the 8 K multichannel analyzer. Values of µm, σt and σe decrease with increasing energy of gamma photons due to the dominance of Compton scattering in the selected energy range. Effective atomic numbers of chosen samples tend to be almost constant as a function of energy. It is clearly observed from the computed results that the among the chosen samples nylon 1,1 has good absorption capability of gamma photons in the low energy region. An attempt has been made to investigate the new gamma-ray-shielding materials that can be used at a large scale and that will be available at low cost.