Kaylee Cunningham
Boca Raton, FL
Age 18
This sports bra reduces ionizing or dangerous radiation penetration up to 72 percent and it does this because the padding is made out of carbon nanotube epoxy resin-coated carbon. Ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation are the two types of radiation. Ionizing radiation is the dangerous kind. Nuclear researchers, radiologists, and flight attendants are all at risk of increased radiation exposure to develop breast cancer due to the job environment, according to a recent Harvard University study. Carbon is made into nanotube-like structure and it looks almost like a chicken wire. Carbon nanotube is a very strong, lightweight structure that is also incredibly conductive and reflective, so materials or radiation is able to very easily reflect off of it. That is one of the ways that this bra is able to shield from radiation. The other way is through the epoxy resin. Epoxy is basically like melted down plastic that hardens into glue. This epoxy is infused with carbon nanotubes so that the polymers in the epoxy resin can absorb some of the radiation while the other radiation is being reflected away by the carbon nanotubes. The last part is united Almira fabric, just carbon fibers woven in one direction parallel to each other. Because the fibers are made out of carbon, it still has those reflective and conductive properties that the carbon nanotubes do and so the radiation just reflects off of this material. By using these materials and putting them inside a padding of Lycra, I was able to reduce radiation penetration up to 72 percent in my invention.