Investigation of the neutron radiation protective properties of chlorophyll and carotenoid

In this study, we have investigated neutron radiation absorption properties of chlorophyll and carotenoid. Our aim is to show that chlorophyll and carotenoid, which are naturally found in every green plant, can be used to make a cream, medicine, paint, or shield material against neutrons. Neutron radiation is generally used in many applications such as diffraction and scattering experiments, material crystallography, diagnosis and therapy in medicine, cell DNA studies in biology, condensed matter physics, materials research and development, solid-state chemistry, mineralogy, geology, and the study and improvement of the structural properties of materials. In order to reduce or completely eliminate the damages that can be caused by direct or scattered neutrons by the people working in these studies or other people in the environment, materials with high shielding are needed to absorb neutrons. In order to understand that chlorophyll and carotenoid can be used in the production of neutron shielding materials, the neutron radiation absorption parameters of these materials were investigated. The pa-rameters, which are widely used in neutron shielding studies such as an effective removal cross section, half value layer, mean free path, and neutron transmission factor (NTF) were estimated using the Monte Carlo simulation GEANT4 code for both fast and epithermal neutrons. In addition, the dose rates of all samples were determined by using an 241Am-Be fast neutron source. All theoretical and experimental results obtained to understand the absorption capacities of chlorophyll and carotenoid were compared with paraffin, which is widely used in neutron shielding applications. It is to be noted that determined that chlorophyll showed an effective shielding against fast neutrons and carotenoid showed an effective shielding against epithermal neutrons. Investigation revealed that these materials are alternate shielding materials against neutron radiation for the production of medicine, composite material, and paint to be developed for neutron radiation.