TISSUE EQUIVALENT MATERIALS FROM SPC-SPI/NAOH/IA-PAE BONDED MANGROVE WOOD CHARACTERIZED FOR RADIATION THERAPY DOSIMETRY

This research focuses on dosimetric measurements in bio-based tissue equivalent phantom materials, designed using soy protein concentrate (SPC), soy protein isolate (SPI), Rhizophora spp. wood, sodium hydroxide, and itaconic acid polyamidoamine-epichlorohydrin resin with an ionization chamber and GafchromicTH EBT3 film dosimeters. The measurements were performed under exposure to 6 MV and 10 MV photon, and 6 MeV and 15 MeV electron beams. The particleboard samples were exposed to a dose of 100 cGy and 10 x 10 cm2 field size at a source-to-surface distance of 100 cm. The dosimeters were irradiated at measurement depths of 1.5, 2.5 and 3.0 cm, respectively, inside the phantom slabs. The particleboards presented superior physical and mechanical properties. The dose measurements revealed excellent agreement with that of water and solid water phantoms. In addition, comparison between the measured dosimetric properties is well within 2%, 2%, 10% and 5.5% for 6 MV, 6 MeV, 10 MV and 15 MeV energies of the maximum dose for the field size tested. This study had successfully shown that SPC-SPI/NaOH/IA-PAE bonded Rhizophora spp. particleboards are promising tissue equivalent phantom materials with merit for medical applications.