Impacts of the calcinated clay on structure and gamma-ray shielding capacity of epoxy-based composites

Abstract

Abstract The current work aims to develop a new composite-based epoxy doped with calcinated clay for low and intermediate gamma-ray energy applications. The increased calcinated clay material concentration between 0 and 60 wt% enhances the constructed composites by 21.07%, from 1.139 ± 0.011 to 1.379 ± 0.013 g·cm−3. Moreover, new bonds have appeared in Fourier transform infrared analyses of fabricated composites, which confirm the diffusion and interactions between the calcinated clay material and epoxy resin. Furthermore, the impacts of the calcinated clay on the gamma-ray shielding properties were examined experimentally using the NaI (Tl) detector over an energy interval changing from 33 to 1,408 keV. The experimental examinations depict that the addition of calcinated clay with concentrations between 0 and 60 wt% enhances the developed composites’ linear attenuation coefficient by 67.9%, 24.5%, 35.9%, and 46.0% at gamma-ray energies of 81, 662, 1,275, and 1,408 keV, respectively. The improvement in the linear attenuation coefficient leads to a decrease in the required half-value layer for each composite, where it decreased between 4.82–3.87 cm (at 662 keV) and 7.63–5.22 cm (at 1,408 keV).