Effect of physical, chemical and electro-kinetic properties of pumice samples on radiation shielding properties of pumice material

• Radiation shielding properties of pumice materials are studied.
• The relationship between physical, chemical and electro-kinetic properties pumice samples is identified.
• The photon atomic parameters are important for the absorber peculiarity of the pumices.

Pumice has been used in cement, concrete, brick, and ceramic industries as an additive and aggregate material. In this study, some gamma-ray photon absorption parameters such as the total mass attenuation coefficients, effective atomic number and electronic density have been investigated for six different pumice samples. Numerous values of energy related parameters from low energy (1 keV) to high energy (100 MeV) were calculated using WinXCom programme. The relationship between radiation shielding properties of the pumice samples and their physical, chemical and electro-kinetic properties was evaluated using simple regression analysis. Simple regression analysis indicated a strong correlation between photon energy absorption parameters and density and SiO2, Fe2O3, CaO, MgO, TiO2 content of pumice samples in this study. It is found that photon energy absorption parameters are not related to electro-kinetic properties of pumice samples.