Tungsten Alloy Shielding Used For Sterile Insect Technique

The sterile insect technique is a biological insect control method that uses radiation source to irradiate injurious insect, resulting in dominant lethal mutations in the body of insects (ie, chromosome breakage) and causing the abnormal mitotic, then overwhelming numbers of sterile insects are released into the wild. The released insects are normally male, as the females cause the damage usually by laying eggs in the crop. The sterile males compete with wild males to mate with the females. Females that mate with a sterile male produce no offspring, thus reducing the next generation's population. Repeated release of sterile males can diminish small populations, although success with dense target populations has not been demonstrated. The sterile insect technique has the advantage of strong specificity, and can avoid the resistance to drugs generated by the application of pesticides to prevent insects.

The radiation sources used by sterile insect technique are mainly α-rays, β-rays, γ-rays and neutrons, these rays all belong to ionizing radiation that has ionization effect and will cause some harm to human body. When the body is subjected to the radiation exposure, dizziness, fatigue, headache, memory loss, vision loss, sleep disorders and other symptoms will appear, and the radiation will affect the human reproductive system, circulatory system, immune system, metabolic system, cardiovascular system, resulting in children's mental defects, cancer, leukemia and other diseases. Therefore, people should pay attention to use radiation shielding to shield radiation in the use of inherited sterility technique for the prevention of pests.

Tungsten alloy shielding can be used for shielding the radiation generated in the use of inherited sterility technique. Studies have shown that the radiation shielding capability of a material is closely related to its density, the higher density means a better radiation shielding capability and radiation absorbing ability. Compared to other radiation shielding materials (such as lead), tungsten alloy has a higher density, so that tungsten alloy shielding has better radiation shielding capability. 

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