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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2014

Jiaming Bai ,
Ruth D. Goodridge ,
Richard J.M. Hague ,
Mo Song  and
Hideyuki Murakami
Jiaming Bai
Affiliation:
Additive Manufacturing and 3D-Printing Research Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom
Ruth D. Goodridge*
Affiliation:
Additive Manufacturing and 3D-Printing Research Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom
Richard J.M. Hague
Affiliation:
Additive Manufacturing and 3D-Printing Research Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom
Mo Song
Affiliation:
Department of Materials, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, United Kingdom
Hideyuki Murakami
Affiliation:
Surface Kinetics Group, High Temperature Materials Unit National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba 305-0047, Japan
*
b)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: Ruth.Goodridge@nottingham.ac.uk
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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.

Keywords

carbon nanotubesnanocomposites3D-TEMlaser sintering
Type
Review Article
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 29 , Issue 17: Focus Issue: The Materials Science of Additive Manufacturing , 14 September 2014 , pp. 1817 - 1823
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2014 

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