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Ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene fiber/boron nitride composites with high neutron shielding efficiency and mechanical performance

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Abstract

Neutron shielding material with high shielding efficiency, small density, and flexibility is urgently needed in nuclear plants, aerospace, and healthcare field. In this study, neutron shielding composite of ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene fiber (UPEF)/boron nitride (BN)/polyurethane (PU) is fabricated by spraying BN/PU dispersion on UPEF, where UPEF and BN are used to slow and absorb the neutrons, respectively, and PU was used as adhesive matrix, due to that polyethylene (PE) with high content of hydrogen can effectively slow the high-energy neutrons to thermal neutrons through multiple collisions with hydrogen atoms while boron has large capture cross-section for thermal neutrons. The result shows that the neutron transmission factor (I/I0) of the 3.2-mm-thick UPEF/BN/PU composite decreases to 0.28% at a BN content of 20 wt%. In addition, the composite shows excellent mechanical performance with tensile stress of 550–750 MPa. The UPEF/BN/PU composite is proved effective in neutrons shielding, making it excellent candidate in neutron radiation-related field, both as functional and structural material.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Dr. Dong Liu (Mianyang) for the kindly help on neutron shielding efficiency measurements.

Funding

Thanks for the financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (21704096, 51703217). The authors would like to thank the Deanship of Scientific Research at Umm Al-Qura University for supporting this work by grant code 22UQU4281758DSR03.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Engineering Research Center for Advanced Polymer Processing Technology, The Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Mold, Ministry of Education, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450002, People’s Republic of China

    Wei Zhang, Yao Feng, Yi Liu, Liangchun Zhou, Fengmei Su, Chuntai Liu & Changyu Shen

  2. Chemistry Department, Faculty of Applied Science, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia

    Jalal T. Althakafy

  3. Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif, 21944, Saudi Arabia

    Hala M. Abo-Dief

  4. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, People’s Republic of China

    Mina Huang

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  1. Wei Zhang
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Contributions

Wei Zhang: methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing–original draft. Yao Feng: investigation, data curation. Jalal T. Althakafy: discussions and property analysis, formal analysis. Yi Liu: investigation, data curation. Hala M. Abo-Dief: discussions and property analysis, formal analysis. Mina Huang: discussions and property analysis, formal analysis. Liangchun Zhou: investigation, data curation. Fengmei Su: conceptualization, writing–review and editing, project administration, supervision. Chuntai Liu: supervision, writing–review and editing. Changyu Shen: supervision.

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Correspondence to Fengmei Su or Chuntai Liu.

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Zhang, W., Feng, Y., Althakafy, J.T. et al. Ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene fiber/boron nitride composites with high neutron shielding efficiency and mechanical performance. Adv Compos Hybrid Mater 5, 2012–2020 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-022-00539-7

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