Jsm 5600lv scanning electron microscope

Twenty milliliters of culture from different conditions was centrifuged at 5000 g for 10 min at 25 °C. The pellets were then washed thrice in 10 ml ice-cold PBS and centrifuged at 5000 rpm for 5 min at 25 °C. Pellets were dissolved in 1 ml Dubos Difco broth and later vortexed vigorously to disperse bacterial clumps. Suspensions with an OD (600 nm) of 0.15 were prepared in fresh Dubos broth. Three hundred microliters from each sample was then loaded onto polylysine-coated cover slips that were prepared according to manufacturer’s guidelines (Sigma-Aldrich St. Louis MO USA). Bacteria were allowed to settle for 30 min before gently decanting the medium. One milliliter of 2.5% glutaraldehyde in PBS (pH 7.4) was added to the bacterial film on the coverslip and incubated overnight at 4 °C. A series of dehydration steps were performed for 10 minutes each in 50%, 70%, 95% and 100% ethanol and the coverslips were dried at room temperature. Samples were gold-sputtered using JEOL-1200 (Peabody, MA, USA) and imaged using a JEOL-JSM-5600 LV scanning electron microscope.

The visual macrostructural analysis of cementitious composites was initially conducted without optical magnification equipment to assess the uniformity of aggregate distribution in the cementitious binder matrix. Subsequently, a LEICA SAPO optical microscope (Leica Microsystems, GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany) was used for microscopic analysis to examine the distribution at the macroporosity level.
A JEOL/JSM 5600—LV scanning electron microscope (JEOL Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) operating in the secondary electron imaging (SEI) mode at 15 kV acceleration voltage was used to take SEM and EDS images. As part of the preparation process, the samples were gold coated by plasma sputtering to improve the electrical conductivity for electron microscopy analysis. Phase identification in the samples was carried out using X-ray diffraction (XRD) in the angular range 2θ = 20−85°. An INEL Equinox 3000 diffractometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific S.p.A., Milan, Italy) using Co-Kα radiation (λ = 1.7903 Å) was used.