Useability of hexagonal boron nitride as neutron absorber

Turkey has approximately 72% as estimated for boron mineral resources and it is known that obtaining of high-tech end products from boron resources in the scale of the global trade, national income would be very high. Hexagonal BN has high temperature refractiveness, good thermal conductivity, chemical inert structure and easy processability properties, so it can be used as neutron absorber in nuclear reactors in which high temperature occurs. Neutron capture is an important problem in nuclear energy centrals because of to prevent irradiation and also to increase nuclear energy efficiency. With this aim, it is necessary to improve radiation shielding properties of materials. Lead and steel materials can be used in shielding. Design of these shielding materials has been occured according to compulsive working conditions. Also, boronizing is a method to provide extra shielding capability for materials. In this study, all surfaces of AISI 1040 steel material was coated with solid boronizing technique at 800-900?C temperature with one hour in a foundry furnace. Irradiation studies were obtained at TAEK-SANAEM laboratories in coated steel and noncoated steel materials. As a result, percent 5,8 neutron absorbing was obtained at 35 ?m coating thickness in h-BN coated steel according to noncoated steel.