Pure Nickel
Purpose：The purpose of this application
guide is to prepare and examine the microstructure of pure nickel.The pure
nickel sample is prepared by sectioning (CT 250S manual cutting machine), hot
mounting (FlexPress automatic mounting machine), and grinding and polishing
using the Alpha 610 automatic grinding and polishing machine After surface
preparation, the specimen is etched with Marble’s reagent to reveal the
microstructure, which is subsequently examined under an optical microscope.
Basic
Guide：
Cutting：1.Select
an S20 silicon carbide (SiC) cutting wheel for sectioning.The specific wheel specification should be selected
according to the Trojan Cutting Guide.
Mounting：To
allow observation of the internal microstructure, a general-purpose hot
mounting compound is recommended.
Grinding：1.Perform
coarse grinding using P400 SiC paper / grinding disc until the specimen surface
is flat and the
cutting damage layer is completely removed. 2. After coarse grinding, continue
grinding using a POS disc incombination with 9μm
diamond suspension.
3.After
each grinding step, thoroughly rinse and clean both the specimenand the
specimen holder with water to prevent cross-contamination.
Polishing：1.Before
starting polishing, the polishing cloth, specimen holder, and hands must
bethoroughly cleaned. This cleaning procedure shall be repeated after each
subsequentpolishing step.
2.Polishing
discs used with different
diamond particle sizes must not be mixed to avoid cross-contamination.
3.After
polishing, rinse the specimen with alcohol and dry the surface using a blower
to remove anyresidual water stains.
4.After
each polishing step, examine the specimen under a metallurgical microscope to
verify that thescratch size corresponds to the polishing particle size and that
the scratch pattern is randomly oriented.
5.If
residual scratches are still visible after SC polishing, the polishing time may
be extended by 3–5minutes.
6.After
use, polishing cloths should be thoroughly cleaned with running water and a
soft brush,drained, and stored properly.
