Comparison of experimental and theoretical radiation shielding parameters of several environmentally friendly materials

In this study, the gamma radiation shielding features of several environmentally friendly materials were investigated. For this purpose, several attenuation parameters, such as the mass attenuation coefficient ( $$\mu /\rho$$ ), radiation protection efficiency (RPE), and effective atomic number (Zeff) were determined experimentally and compared with numerical data obtained using WinXCom software. In the measurements, the emitted gamma photons were counted by a gamma spectrometer equipped with an HPGe detector using 22Na, 54Mn, 57Co, 60Co, 133Ba, and 137Cs radioactive point sources in the energy region of 81–1333 keV. The obtained results indicate that the $$\mu /\rho$$ and RPE values of the samples decrease with an increase in photon energy. The experimental values are in good agreement with those obtained using WinXCom software. The RPE and Zeff results show that among the studied materials, the NaY0.77Yb0.20Er0.03F4 sample has the best gamma radiation shielding effectiveness.