We need to coat parts of an neutron instrument with a boron shielding coating. This currently is achieved using an airbrush gun with a paint mix of demineralized water, polyurethane and boron powder.
Ideally we would like as little hydrogen as possible in the coating, as the hydrogen causes neutrons to scatter which causes undesirable noise in detectors. The polyurethane gives decent adhesion and toughness but contains a fair amount of hydrogen. Are there any alternative binders which could offer similar performance with less hydrogen content, or zero hydrogen content?
Water uptake is not too much of an issue, nor is outgassing as we are not at particular high vacuum levels.
