Barbican-inspired bimetallic core–shell nanoparticles for fabricating natural leather-based radiation protective materials with enhanced X-ray shielding capability

With the wide application of X-rays, the development of flexible and efficient radiation protective materials to reduce the hazards of radiation is in great demand. Inspired by the Barbican defense system, the bimetallic nanocomposites were designed and assembled to trap X-rays photons to experience ordered and cyclic attenuation behavior, where two high-atomic-number elements with different absorption edges, Bismuth (Bi) and Tin (Sn), are assembled into a core–shell nanostructure (Bi@Sn) and were then evenly dispersed into natural leather (NL) to fabricated a high-efficiency wearable radiation protective material (Bi@Sn/NL). Benefiting from the well-defined Barbican-effect mechanism of the core–shell nanostructure, Bi@Sn nanoparticle features more efficient X-ray shielding capability than Bi+Sn nanoparticles mixtures which directly mixed Bi and Sn, and a 2.0 mm-thick Bi2.31@Sn2.43/NL could achieve a comparable attenuation efficiency to a 0.25 mm lead plate and averagely exceeded ∼10.4% than Bi2.31+Sn2.43/NL. Furthermore, Bi2.31@Sn2.43/NL also displays superior physiomechanical properties to the requirements of the Chinese National Standard and features an ultralow density of 1.2876 g cm−3. This work is expected to provide a promising strategy for the design and development of lightweight and high-efficiency wearable radiation protective materials.