Credit: UrFU / Anastasia Farafontova
Scientists at the Ural Federal University (UrFU, Russia) have created clay bricks that are able to attenuate ionizing radiation to a level that is safe for the human body. To the composition of bricks scientists add waste from the industry, which protects against radiation. The article describing the technology was published in the journal
Applied Radiation and Isotopes.
"Bricks are a relatively cheap and convenient material with which we can quickly erect protective rooms, structures, walls around objects with radiation," says scientific head of the project, associate professor of the Department of Nuclear Power Plants and Renewable Energy Sources at UrFU Oleg Tashlykov. "The bricks are alloyed with heavy metals - wastes from the metallurgical enterprises. These substances have pronounced radiation-protective properties. Thus, we solve two problems at once. First, by adding crushed absorbers of ionizing radiation to the matrix, in this case from clay, we obtain building materials with the desired protective properties. Secondly, in this way we find a way to utilize industrial waste."