Double adhesive conductive carbon tabs

A stereoscope was used to observe the filaments. Photographs were captured using a Jenoptik (Jena, Germany) ProgRes GRYPHAX Altair camera attached to a ZEISS (Oberkochen, Germany) SteREO Discovery V20 microscope and Gryphax image capturing software.
The fracture surfaces of the 3D-printed tensile test specimens were characterized with scanning electron microscopy (Phenom ProX, ThermoFisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA). The images were acquired from the cross-section area of the tensile tested 3D-printed specimens. Samples were mounted onto double adhesive conductive carbon tabs (TED Pella, Redding, CA, USA) on an aluminum stub (placed in a charge reduction holder) without coating and scanned at an accelerating voltage of 10 kV.

The morphology of the ODFs was assessed with scanning electron microscopy (Phenom ProX, ThermoFisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA). Samples were mounted onto double adhesive conductive carbon tabs (TED Pella, Redding, CA, USA) on an aluminum stub. The samples were gold-coated using an ion sputtering device (Quorum SC7620, East Sussex, UK) and scanned at an accelerating voltage of 15 kV. Fiber diameters were determined using Phenom FiberMetric—Fiber Analysis Software based on at least 100 fibers from three different images per sample (amplification 6000×).

The top surfaces of the 3D-printed nanocomposites PLA/MMT were observed using a scanning electron microscope (Phenom ProX, ThermoFisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA). Firstly, an aluminum stub (placed in a charge reduction holder) was used to attach the samples utilizing double adhesive conductive carbon tabs (TED Pella, Redding, CA, USA) to secure them. Then, a carbon coating was applied on the surface of the samples to increase electrical conductivity, and the samples were scanned at an accelerating voltage of 15 kV. The samples were coated with carbon black, utilizing a sputter coater (SC 7620 model, Quorum Technologies, East Sussex, UK) for 90 s, 18 mA. Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX) was performed on the surface of the specimens. The accelerating voltage was 15 kV.