SEM image processing of polymer nanocomposites to estimate filler content

Abstract

To study the distribution of morphological structures like fillers (such as silica nanoparticles) and their agglomerates in polymer nanocomposites, image processing technique on 2D scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of the polymer nanocomposites was used. A suitable algorithm was proposed to determine the threshold for binarization of the SEM image. The algorithm also gave an estimate of filler percentage in the nanocomposites. With the help of an independent experiment using Thermogravimetry Analyzer (TGA), the silica (filler) contents of the nanocomposites were estimated. The results obtained using image processing technique were in good agreement with the experimental results obtained through thermogravimetry analysis. The binary images thus definitely depicted the acceptable distribution of the nano-fillers and their agglomerates in the nanocomposites.

Investigation on guar gum and chitosan based polymer composite for oilfield water shut off fluid

“…The range of visco-elastic properties was between 0• until 90•, where 0• was an ideal elastic solid and 90• is an ideal Newtonian fluid. The reading of CHS/GG-g-PAN/AA was around 0.3. the stability of composite polymer were aligned with findings from few researchers such, the acrylic acid (AA) and Chitosan (CH) which act as filler (Jamaludin and Hashim, 2011) and time delay agent (Zheng et al, 2016), which proven aid of these two polymers may strengthen the composite polymer (Kundu et al, 2015) with time targeting polymerization process. Expansion evaluation is a test to study the ability of a polymer to withstand its structure with different salts contact and pH imbalance once it cured.…”

“…polymers may strengthen the composite polymer (Kundu et al, 2015) with time targeting polymerization process. These visco-elastic property were determined by calculating applied strain, ẟ, of tan -1 (loss modulus/elastic modulus).…”

A Study of the Flexural Properties of PA12/Clay Nanocomposites

“…Thorough the visual investigation of a large number of SEM images of samples of polymer nanocomposites, it was revealed that the fillers could ne, in general, identified and characterized by the upper range of gray values (i.e., white or near white), while polymers are identified and characterized by the lower range of gray values (i.e., black or near black) [ 40 ].…”

Evaluation of nano‐filler dispersion quality in polymeric films with binary feature characteristics and fractal analysis

“…Texture feature extraction and classification methods have been used for wheat straw/polypropylene composites in order to accelerate the aging test [2]. In another research, the SEM images have been used in an image processing technique to estimate the filler content of polymeric nanocomposites [3]. For anodic porous alumina, structural characterisation analysis has been introduced with SEM images [4] and fractal dimension calculation has been used for identification the polymeric nanocomposites [5].…”