Enhancing the Wear Resistance of Aluminium Alloys: Superior Effect of rGO-modification on Ni-W-P Coatings

Abstract

The electroless coating of Ni-W-P, one of the well-known ternary alloy systems, has been successfully applied to aluminium. Moreover, adding rGO produced by the modified Hummers method to the bath content significantly improves the wear resistance. To optimize the rGO concentration, rGO is added to the bath with different concentrations and wear resistances at different sliding speeds (100, 200, and 300mm/sec) are tested. Furthermore, at the 300mm/sec sliding speed, rGO has reduced the friction coefficient of the coating by 42% and increased the wear resistances by approximately five times (from 8.43×10−7 to 1.87×10−7 mm3/Nm). As a result, developed Ni-W-P/rGO composite coatings are promising for both novel high-tech applications that need, are cost-effective, and have a long service life.