New binary and ternary SiO2 composites with Fe2O3 and Co2.74O4 and the evaluation of their γ-radiation shielding properties

A new series of binary and ternary nanocomposites contains cobalt oxide or iron/cobalt oxides were manufactured to increase silicon dioxide γ shielding power. XRD indicated the presence of Co as Co_2.74O₄ (COD: 1528446) and the presence of iron as Fe₃O₄ (COD: 9002318 and 9005814). Using Profex, the Rietveld refinements were carried out. The R_w, R_ex, x², and G_of were 4.49, 4.34, 1.07, and 1.03, respectively, indicating good refinement parameters. XPS indicated the presence of Si ([Formula: see text]), Fe (Fe[Formula: see text]O[Formula: see text]) and cobalt ([Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]). TEM analysis showed that all metal oxide@SBA-15 solids have characteristic and well-organized SBA-15 structures. The γ-radiation shielding for the prepared samples were investigated via the Monte-Carlo code (MCN) and Phy-X software. The results confirmed that, adding high concentrations of cobalt-oxide and hematite increases the linear attenuation significantly. The SiCoFe-3 sample, which contains the highest content of cobalt-oxide and hematite, has the best γ-radiation shielding capability among all the synthesized SiCo/SiCoFe samples.