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Graphene Radiation Shielding

What is Radiation Shielding? Radiation shielding  has been an important subject of scientific investigations for years because radiation affects human’s health at the first place. Scientists try to keep the radiation at minimum level with optimum materials. Almost  any material can act as a barrier to gamma or X-rays  but the efficiency, size, mass, cost, etc. are the determinant parameters for material selection.  Lead, tin, copper and concrete are the most commonly used materials for radiation shielding  these days. Figure 1 below shows schematic illustration of some radiation shielding materials. How is Graphene used for Radiation Shielding? Graphene  (see Figure 2), which is a special form of Carbon, is in a category of  weak radiation absorber   due to its low atomic number value, Z=6. This is not a surprising fact considering its only one layer of atoms thick. However, recent studies have shown that  graphene  can...