Fabrication of BN nano fiber neutron shield as hospital gown material

Authors

Abstract

In this paper, boron nitride (BN) nanofibers have been produced and tested to absorb thermal neutron radiation in order to use in hospital gown raw materials. Samples were prepared for boron with 7%, 10%, 12% and 15% weight percent using electrospinning method. The samples were tested by exposure to a thermal neutron source with an indium detector. The total mass cross-section of the samples as well as the cadmium sheet was measured under the same conditions for the thermal neutrons, and the results were compared. The outcomes show that increasing boron content in the samples directly reduces the passing neutrons, which indicates the effect of boron nitride content and uniform distribution of boron nitride particles in the produced nanofibers. Results also revealed that the total mass cross-section of the samples is much higher compared to cadmium. The produced samples are very light with a fabric-like structure which makes it perfectly suitable to produce neutron radiation shields.

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