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Nanostructural characterization of carbon nanotubes in laser-sintered polyamide 12 by 3D-TEM

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Abstract

Three-dimensional transmission electron microscopy (3D-TEM) is a powerful technology that provides 3D characterization of the internal details of a material. In this work, for the first time, 3D-TEM was used to characterize a laser-sintered polymer nanocomposite. The dispersion of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in the laser-sintered polyamide 12 (PA12)-CNT nanocomposite parts was evaluated. At first, to prepare 3D-TEM samples at specific locations, a focused ion beam technique was used. Then, high quality two-dimensional (2D)-TEM images were achieved at various scanning angles for the PA12-CNT laser-sintered sample. After that, 3D-TEM images were reconstructed by combining all the 2D-TEM images. Results revealed that the CNTs were agglomerate-free in the PA12-CNT parts after laser sintering, which helps to explain previously reported improvement in mechanical properties of laser-sintered PA12-CNT parts.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank EPSRC, UK and the Transmission Electron Microscopy station in the National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS), Japan for supporting this work. We would also like to acknowledge the GB Sasakawa Foundation for providing a travel bursary to J. Bai.

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Author notes

  1. Jiaming Bai

    Present address: Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, 71 Nanyang Drive, Singapore, 638075, Singapore

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Additive Manufacturing and 3D-Printing Research Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK

    Jiaming Bai, Ruth D. Goodridge & Richard J. M. Hague

  2. Department of Materials, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK

    Mo Song

  3. Surface Kinetics Group, High Temperature Materials Unit National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, 305-0047, Japan

    Hideyuki Murakami

Authors
  1. Jiaming Bai
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  2. Ruth D. Goodridge
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  3. Richard J. M. Hague
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  4. Mo Song
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  5. Hideyuki Murakami
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Correspondence to Ruth D. Goodridge.

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Bai, J., Goodridge, R.D., Hague, R.J.M. et al. Nanostructural characterization of carbon nanotubes in laser-sintered polyamide 12 by 3D-TEM. Journal of Materials Research 29, 1817–1823 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2014.126

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2014.126

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