Radiation protection from tungsten nanotechnology

The Fukushima nuclear reactor accident has increased demand for efficient, non-toxic, and lightweight gamma radiation shielding materials, as its absence caused serious delays in managing the situation, and conventional lead-based shielding materials introduce adverse health and environmental effects.

A team constructed a lattice-based MCNP model to simulate the relationship between tungsten particle size and gamma-energy-dependent attenuation. They observed the size effect increases as the gamma energy decreases, while it decreases and disappears all energies higher than ~1 MeV. They also verified this concept experimentally by measuring the gamma attenuation using three different energies (~0.3 MeV to ~1.2 MeV) for both nano- and micro-systems.

More importantly, they developed a simple but efficient preparation method for such materials. In-situ pulverization of micro-tungsten powder with polyethylene powder using high energy ball milling produced nano-tungsten powder, the surface of which is encapsulated by PE. Based on this method, a nano-tungsten/polyethylene dispersed polymer nano-composite was prepared using a conventional polymer extruding process, which is readily applicable to mass production. Nano-tungsten containing products for shielding X-ray and gamma radiation including a full body apron and a thyroid guard-are the first commercially available, it can greatly enhance both the material properties and the shielding efficiency.

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