## 3 Results
### High-Energy Spectroscopy Experiment Results
As evidenced by Table 2, Sr-2's higher LOI content supports this behavior, resulting in superior fast neutron-attenuation characteristics. Turning to the removal cross-sections depicted in Figure 13, a similar trend is observed. The fast neutron removal cross-section of Sr-2 was determined to be 0.0875 cm\({}^{-1}\). When the LOI decreases by approximately 11.3%--as seen when comparing Sr-2 to Sr-1--the removal cross-section drops to 0.0819 cm\({}^{-1}\). This outcome underlines the pivotal role of light elements, particularly hydrogen, in facilitating energy reduction of fast neutrons through successive collisions, which is consistent with the theoretical framework described by standard neutron-transport models. Overall, the sequence Sr-2 > Sr-5 > Sr-3 > Sr-4 > Sr-1, consistently observed across both macroscopic and removal cross-sections, reinforces the notion that compositional attributes like LOI and the associated hydrogen content markedly influence the neutron-attenuation efficiency of serpentinite-based materials. These findings align well with broader studies on hydrogenous-shielding matrices, which emphasize the effectiveness of light elements in moderating and ultimately removing fast neutrons from the uncollided flux. The slight differences in the fast neutron removal cross-section values between the Sr-2 and Sr-5 samples are attributed to minor variations in their LOI percentages, which indicate the amount of structural water (including OH groups). This structural water contributes to the hydrogen content within the mineral lattice. Due to their low atomic number and mass, hydrogen atoms have a high probability of undergoing elastic scattering with fast neutrons. As a result, successive collisions effectively reduce neutron energy, enhancing attenuation. Thus, even small differences in hydrogen content play a significant role in moderating fast neutrons and directly influence the macroscopic cross-section values. Figure 14 presents the LAC and RPE values for serpentinite samples at a photon energy of 0.302 MeV. The LAC value for Sr-1 was initially 0.2585 cm\({}^{-1}\). For Sr-2, the LAC value showed a noticeable increase, reaching up to 0.2773 cm\({}^{-1}\). The reason for this is that the Sr-2 sample contains a greater amount of REE than Sr-1, which increases the density of the sample. According to Figure 14, the Sr-2 sample has the highest RPE. The density reinforcement significantly improves the composite's ability to attenuate photons, which is especially beneficial for applications requiring enhanced radiation-shielding properties. Figure 14: Gamma ray linear attenuation coefficient and RPE graph of serpentinite samples. The radiation-shielding parameters described in Figures 11-14 are summarized in Table 5. Research on radiation shielding of REE-containing serpentinite rocks has shown that the Sr-2 sample has the best gamma and neutron-shielding ability. The fast neutron-absorption equivalent dose rates (\(\upmu\)Sv/h) of the serpentinite samples were measured experimentally. The fast neutron-absorption equivalent dose rates are given in Figure 15. As seen from Figure 15, the dose of 1.2039 \(\upmu\)Sv/h emitted by the fast neutron source was absorbed 36.905% by Sr-1, 25.543% by Sr-2, 29.656% by Sr-3, 33.459% by Sr-4, and 27.431% by Sr-5. Since the fast neutron cross-section decreases as the neutron absorption increases, the results obtained in Figure 15 and Table 5 are consistent with each other.