Abstract
Water-based lubrication has attracted remarkable interest due to its environmental and economic advantages. However, practical applications of water-based lubrication are often limited, mainly because of low viscosity and corrosivity. The use of additives has been proposed to overcome these limitations. In this work, the tribological characteristics of titanium carbide (Ti3C2) MXenes, as additives for water-based lubrication, were systematically investigated for contact sliding between stainless steel under various normal forces and Ti3C2 concentrations. Both friction and wear were found to decrease with increasing Ti3C2 concentration up to 5 wt%, and then increased when the concentration was larger than 5 wt%. The results suggest that Ti3C2 flakes hindered direct contact, particularly at the edges of the contact interfaces. It was further shown that the agglomeration of Ti3C2 flakes may have reduced the hindering when an excessive amount of Ti3C2 (e.g., 7 wt%) was applied. The decreases in the friction coefficient and wear rate with 5 wt% of Ti3C2 concentration w approximately 20% and 48%, respectively. The outcomes of this work may be helpful in gaining a better understanding of the tribological properties of Ti3C2 as a feasible water-based lubrication additive.
Highlights
Environmental degradation, such as resource depletion, climate change, and pollution, has become a growing concern in the last few decades
Ti3C2 concentration varied from 0 wt% to 7 wt%
The flattened width of the ball after the experiment with a 7 wt% Ti3 C2 concentration was larger than that after the experiment with 0 wt% Ti3 C2 (Figure 4a), the wear track was wider for 0 wt% Ti3 C2 concentration than for 7 wt% Ti3 C2 concentration (Figure 5a). These results indicate that the direct contact between the ball and disk may have been hindered by the Ti3 C2 flakes, at the edges of the contact interface, and that such hindering by Ti3 C2 flakes was more substantial as Ti3 C2 concentration increased up to 5 wt%
Summary
Environmental degradation, such as resource depletion, climate change, and pollution, has become a growing concern in the last few decades. To overcome these problems, and to ensure a sustainable future, various green technologies have been under development [1,2,3]. In order to overcome these limitations and improve the properties of water-based lubricants, extensive efforts have been made over the past decades. To enhance the tribological properties of the coatings in water-based lubrication, surface texturing, such as nanostructure, micro-dimples, and grooves, has been proposed [11,12,13].
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