Study on hard X-ray absorbing properties of nanocluster polyaniline

Attenuation of X-ray materials based on polyaniline (PANI) as non-toxic material were fabricated and investigated. PANI was prepared by chemical polymerization in presence of HCl, para-toluene sulfonic acid (PTSA), camphor sulfonic acid (CSA), dodecyl benzene sulfonic acid (DBSA) and lignin sulfonic acid (LSA) with double acts as surfactant, dopant and ammonium persulphate (APS) as oxidant. The morphology, thermal stability and electrical conductivity of resulting PANI were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and standard four-wire-technique, respectively. In order to evaluate capability of PANI in radiation shielding, X-ray photon interaction parameters such as linear attenuation coefficient, attenuation percentage and half value thickness were determined for the samples with different dopants and thicknesses, at photon energies of 13.95, 17.74, 20.08, 26.34, 59.50 keV as hard X-ray. The investigation was carried out to explore the potential of PANI as thin and light weight radiation shielding materials without toxic heavy metals.