Bismuth and thorium fluorides as efficient X-ray radiation shielding materials

Highlights: • It was found that bismuth and thorium fluorides in the polysiloxane matrix efficiently shield the X-ray radiation. • The polysiloxane materials filled with bismuth or thorium fluorides are thermally stable up to 340C. • The resulting shielding materials easily form flexible and durable layers. • The obtained polysiloxane materixes filled with bismuth or thorium fluorides can be used as cheap, useful shielding materials. Composite materials (CM) consisting of polysiloxane rubber filled with lanthanide acetylacetonates, acetates, carboxylates and bismuth (III) and thorium (IV) fluorides were tested as X-ray shielding materials. It has been established that materials containing bismuth and thorium fluorides are superior in protective properties to the other studied materials, as well as to the convenient composites based on lanthanide oxides. The values of half value layer (HVL) of the materials based on BiF₃(H₂O) (79% wt) and ThF₄(H₂O) (69% wt) at X-ray irradiation with photon energy range 10–45 keV reach 0.20 mm. The obtained materials are flexible and thermally stable up to 300 °C.