Radiation protective qualities of some selected lead and bismuth salts in the wide gamma energy region

Abstract The lead element or its salts are good radiation shielding materials. However, their toxic effects are high. Due to less toxicity of bismuth salts, the radiation shielding properties of the bismuth salts have been investigated and compared to that of lead salts to establish them as a better alternative to radiation shielding material to the lead element or its salts. The transmission geometry was utilized to measure the mass attenuation coefficient (μ/ρ) of different salts containing lead and bismuth using a high-resolution HPGe detector and different energies (between 81 and 1333 keV) emitted from point sources of 133 Ba, 57 Co, 22 Na, 54 Mn, 137 Cs, and 60 Co. The experimental μ/ρ results are compared with the theoretical values obtained through WinXCOM program. The theoretical calculations are in good agreement with their experimental ones. The radiation protection efficiencies, mean free paths, effective atomic numbers and electron densities for the present compounds were determined. The bismuth fluoride (BiF 3 ) is found to have maximum radiation protection efficiency among the selected salts. The results showed that present salts are more effective for reducing the intensity of gamma photons at low energy region.