RT journal article
T1 Degradation of thermoplastic polymers for fused filament fabrication under (S)TEM electron beam irradiation
A1 Valencia Liñán, Luisa María
A1 Hernández Saz, Jesús
A1 Molina Rubio, Sergio Ignacio
A1 Herrera Collado, Miriam
A2 Ciencia de los Materiales e Ingeniería Metalúrgica y Química Inorgánica
K1 STEM-EELS
K1 Low electron dose
K1 Electron beam damage
K1 Degradation mechanisms
K1 Polymers
K1 Additive manufacturing
AB The structural characterization of polymers and, in particular, of those used in Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies, is essential to improve the understanding of their structure-property relationship for promising high-performance applications. For this, (scanning) transmission electron microscopy-electron energy loss spectroscopy, (S)TEM-EELS is an outstanding tool for exploring materials chemical and structural characteristics at high spatial resolution. However, the high beam-sensitivity of soft materials, such as polymers, hinders the possibility of probing in-depth analysis provided by (S)TEM-EELS. In this work, we analyse the electron beam irradiation damage of four polymers commonly used in Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), namely polylactic acid (PLA), polycaprolactone (PCL), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA). For this, sequential low-loss and core-loss EEL spectra have been recorded, and the related signals have been monitored as a function of the accumulated dose. Our results show that the critical electron doses using the specimen thickness variations are larger for polymers containing aromatic groups (ABS and ASA) than for aliphatic polymers (PLA and PCL). Regarding the different elements, a larger sensitivity to the electron beam of oxygen regarding carbon and nitrogen is also evidenced. Our results have shown that polymer degradationoccurs to a larger extent in the initial steps of electron irradiation, for very low accumulated electron doses, meaning that care should be taken in the selection of the microscopy settings to avoid artefacts produced by the electron beam. Degradation pathways for the four polymers studied are discussed.
PB Elsevier
SN 0141-3910
YR 2024
FD 2024-10-09
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/35534
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/35534
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 08-nov-2026