# Itarare Group Sandstone as a Sustainable Alternative Material for Photon Radiation Shielding
## 3 Results
These results indicate that higher concentrations of these elements reduce the amount of scattered photons, favoring greater shielding capacity. Moderate negative correlations were also observed for Al\({}_{2}\)O\({}_{3}\) and EBF, with values ranging from \(-0.47\) to \(-0.49\). In contrast, SiO\({}_{2}\) exhibited a high positive correlation with EBF (0.68-0.69), suggesting that samples with higher silica content favor photon scattering. The titanium oxide showed low positive correlations with EBF (0.32-0.39). Regarding EABF (Table 2), only very low or low correlations were observed for Fe\({}_{2}\)O\({}_{3}\), Al\({}_{2}\)O\({}_{3}\), and SiO\({}_{2}\), indicating that these oxides do not have a significant influence on this parameter. However, an increase in K\({}_{2}\)O content (showing a high negative correlation) reduces photon scattering in the studied sandstones. In contrast, an increase in SO\({}_{3}\) and TiO\({}_{2}\) content (showing a very high positive correlation) increases photon scattering, indicating a lower shielding capacity. However, it is important to note that the oxides K\({}_{2}\)O, SO\({}_{3}\), and TiO\({}_{2}\) (Table 1) make only a small contribution to the chemical composition of the sandstones studied. Therefore, the results of the correlation analysis should be interpreted cautiously. The interaction mechanisms responsible for MAC results in the studied sandstone samples are presented in Figure 10, which shows the average contribution of photoelectric absorption, incoherent scattering, and pair production at different photon energies. At 0.015 MeV, photoelectric absorption dominates the attenuation process, accounting for nearly 100% of the interactions. As the photon energy increases to 0.1 MeV, the relative contribution of photoelectric absorption decreases substantially, while incoherent scattering becomes the predominant mechanism, accounting for approximately 90% of the interactions. This trend continues at 1 MeV, where incoherent scattering accounts for virtually all interactions, and the contributions from both photoelectric absorption and pair production are negligible. At 10 MeV, although incoherent scattering remains the dominant interaction process, pair production contributes more significantly, accounting for approximately one-third of the total. To simulate the influence of different photon interaction processes on the MAC, we considered the average values of the chemical composition across all samples, as the differences between them were negligible. The error bars indicate the standard deviation, reflecting compositional variability. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline
**Correlation** & \multicolumn{4}{c}{**Coefficient of Correlation**} \\ \hline  & **10** & **20** & **30** & **40** \\ \hline EBF x Fe\({}_{2}\)O\({}_{3}\) & \(-0.75\) & \(-0.67\) & \(-0.66\) & \(-0.66\) \\ EABF x Fe\({}_{2}\)O\({}_{3}\) & \(-0.09\) & \(-0.10\) & \(-0.10\) & \(-0.10\) \\ EBF x SiO\({}_{2}\) & \(0.69\) & \(0.68\) & \(0.68\) & \(0.68\) \\ EABF x SiO\({}_{2}\) & \(0.27\) & \(0.28\) & \(0.28\) & \(0.28\) \\ EBF x Al\({}_{2}\)O\({}_{3}\) & \(-0.47\) & \(-0.49\) & \(-0.49\) & \(-0.49\) \\ EABF x Al\({}_{2}\)O\({}_{3}\) & \(-0.23\) & \(-0.24\) & \(-0.24\) & \(-0.24\) \\ EBF x K\({}_{2}\)O & \(-0.81\) & \(-0.83\) & \(-0.83\) & \(-0.83\) \\ EABF x K\({}_{2}\)O & \(-0.68\) & \(-0.68\) & \(-0.69\) & \(-0.68\) \\ EBF x SO\({}_{3}\) & \(-0.02\) & \(0.05\) & \(0.06\) & \(0.06\) \\ EABF x SO\({}_{3}\) & \(0.80\) & \(0.80\) & \(0.80\) & \(0.80\) \\ EBF x TiO\({}_{2}\) & \(0.32\) & \(0.38\) & \(0.39\) & \(0.39\) \\ EABF x TiO\({}_{2}\) & \(0.95\) & \(0.94\) & \(0.95\) & \(0.95\) \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Linear correlation analysis between the main oxides found in sandstones and EBF and EABF. To contextualize the shielding performance of the studied sandstones, we simulated the attenuation parameters for lead (Pb) and ASTM C150 Type I Portland cement (PC) for comparison (Table 3). The data for the cement were obtained from the article by [PERSON] et al. [25].