Tm3030plus

The fracture surfaces of the samples were morphologically evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (TM3030Plus, Hitachi, Tokyo, Japan). The dried samples were sectioned when exposed to N₂ (gaseous) atmosphere, and they were sputter-coated with silver (Ag⁰) (SCD005 Sputter Coater BAL-TEC, sample exposition for 150 s) and examined in a TM3030Plus Hitachi at CETEM. (Centre of Mineral Technology, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brazil) operating under high vacuum at 15 kV. The images were acquired in the backscattered electron mode (BSE).

Scanning electron microscope images were taken of all powders and mixtures using a Hitachi TM3030Plus (Hitachi, Tokyo, Japan) for the mixtures and a Zeiss 1530 (Carl Zeiss GmBH, Oberkochen, Germany) for the APIs. A few scoop sampled particles were sprinkled over a carbon tape followed by gentle tapping to remove excess powder. The samples were then gold coated using a Cressington 108 auto sputter-coater (Cressington Scientific, Watford, UK). The Hitachi TM3030Plus was operated at an acceleration voltage of 5 kV with images captured at 100-500× magnification using a mixed BSE/SE detector. The Zeiss 1530 was operated at an acceleration voltage of 2.5 kV with images captured at 5-10kx magnification using an InLens detector.
To estimate the point of self-agglomeration, light microscope images were taken of mixtures when larger self-agglomerates started to visually appear in the blends. The images were taken using a Zeiss SteREO Discovery.V8 (Carl Zeiss GmBH, Oberkochen, Germany) at 1× magnification.

A high resolution scanner (Epson Expression 11000XL, Epson, Shinjuku, Tokyo) was used to acquire high resolution images of the ADN preforms. An optical microscope (Zeiss Axio Imager M2, Carl Zeiss AG, Oberkochen, Germany) and a scanning electron microscope (Hitachi TM3030Plus, Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) were used to analyse fibre length distributions, cross-sections, and fracture surfaces of the ADNFRC. Cold mounting followed by standard wet grinding and polishing for polymer matrix composites was applied to make the specimens, for cross-section analysis of each ADNFRC under the microscope. The figures of the specimens were shown in Section 3.1 and Section 3.3, and Supplementary Materials.