Q150t carbon coater

Material was removed from the top one cm of each experiment to prevent damage to the remaining column (embedding below), and fixed @ 4 °C for 24 h in 2.5% glutaraldehyde for electron microscopy. All samples were then dehydrated using an ethanol dehydration series (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 3 X 100%), and dried using a hexamethyldisilizane series with 100% ethanol (1:3, 2:2, 3:1, 3:0). Prior to microscopy, samples were placed in a vacuum oven overnight @ 40 °C, plasma cleaned (Evactron Plasma Cleaner) and carbon coated (Quorum Q150T carbon coater). Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) was performed using a JEOLJSM – 7100F at an accelerating voltage of 20 keV for back scattered and between 2 – 4 keV for secondary electron imaging, with a working distance of 10 mm.

The morphology of the polymers was investigated using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) (Quanta FEG 250, FEI, Hillsboro, OR, USA). A small amount of each sample was placed on a metal stub using the conductive double-sided adhesive tape and coated with gold using Quorum SC7620 Sputter Coater under vacuum. The electron acceleration voltage was 20 kV. The micrographs were taken under several magnifications (X30, 100, 500, and 1000) and analysed.
EDX analysis was performed using the Oxford Instruments Aztec software version 4.2 (Oxford Instrumemts, Oxford, UK) using the 80 mm X-Max detector to give the elemental composition of the samples. The powder samples were prepared initially by mounting them onto a small aluminium stub and a carbon sticker was used to hold the powder down, after which it was air dusted to remove any loose particles. The samples were then carbon coated using the Quorum Q150T carbon coater, which deposited approximately 20 nm of carbon onto the samples. The Hitachi SU8230 was used for imaging a consistent range of magnifications with the settings optimised for each sample.