Ceramic tiles doped with lead oxide nanoparticles: Their fabrication, physical, mechanical characteristics and γ-ray shielding performance

Highlights: • Incorporation of PbO NPs with different wt% in ceramic tiles. • The modulus of rupture values are ranged between 1.753 ± 0.07 and 2.674 ± 0.11 MPa. • Water adsorption percentages are decreased from 18.98% to 17.60%. • The bulk densities are increased from 2.09 ± 0.75 to 3.06 ± 0.38 g/cm³. • The assembled ceramic tiles exhibited better γ-rays shielding than standards. Novel ceramic tile/lead oxide nanocomposites were designed and assembled based on doping standard ceramic tiles with lead oxide nanoparticles to serve as promising alternative candidates for γ-ray shielding. Various techniques were used to examine the structural properties of the newly formed lead oxide nanoparticles-doped ceramic tile composites including Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), and Field emission-transmission electron microscope (FE-TEM). The main parameter tested in order to characterize the mechanical properties of the newly formed nanocomposites was the modulus of rupture. Since the doping material used in this study was lead oxide nanoparticles, it was found that as its content increased in the ceramic body from 0.0 to 10.0 wt%, the modulus of rupture increased from 1.753 ± 0.07 to 2.674 ± 0.11 MPa, respectively. The curvature of the tiles' edges, the percentage of water adsorption, and their bulk density were among the physical properties examined. The mass attenuation coefficients of the tested samples were evaluated at different γ-ray photon energies (from 59.53 to 1332.50 keV), in terms of the weight percentage of lead oxide nanoparticles. To confirm the γ-rays shielding capabilities of assembled nanocomposites, other shielding parameters were computed, including the mean free path, the effective atomic number, the half value layer, and the effective electron density. It was found that the ceramic tile containing 10.0 wt% lead oxide nanoparticles had the highest value of mass attenuation coefficient, effective atomic number, and effective electron density and the smallest value of half value layer and mean free path, with respect to all studied nanocomposites. This results proved that as the lead oxide nanoparticles content of ceramic-tile nanocomposites increased (from 0.0 to 10.0 wt%), so did their γ-ray shielding ability. Finally, it can be concluded that ceramic tile-loaded-lead oxide nanoparticles exhibited significant improvements in the γ-rays shielding parameters compared to that filled with bulk lead oxide under the same weight percentage.