3D Reconstruction of TiO2/Epoxy Nanocomposite for Evaluation of Agglomerate Disruption Effect

Abstract

Controlling the dispersion states of nanoparticles is important for polymer nanocomposites because the breakdown strength depends on the size of the nanoparticle’s agglomerate. In general, most agglomerates are disrupted by dispersion processes such as homogenizer and sonication. However, the disruption effect has not been quantified for evaluating the particle size distribution in 3D. This paper describes a quantification method of the homogenizer disruption effect on the agglomerates of TiO2/epoxy nanocomposites using 3D reconstructed models based on FIB-SEM images.