Nickel-catalyzed direct growth of graphene on bearing steel (GCr15) by thermal chemical vapor deposition and its tribological behavior

Abstract

The present work investigates the friction and wear behavior of graphene synthesized on bearing steel. To avoid the deterioration in the quality of graphene during transfer and to avail the advantage of better adhesion between graphene and substrate, the graphene films were grown directly by thermal chemical vapor deposition on GCr15 bearing steel catalyzed with a layer of electroplated nickel. A gaseous mixture of H2 and acetylene (C2H2) was used to synthesize the graphene films. The effect of growth temperature, reaction time and flow rate on the formation of graphene films was investigated by Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The results indicated that few to multilayer graphene can be grown across the surface of Ni/steel. It was concluded that the graphene quality could be enhanced by optimizing the growth temperature, acetylene flow rate and time. Further, comparative study of tribological behavior of steel, Ni/steel, and G/Ni/steel was performed against steel ball for shorter as well as longer duration and it was concluded that graphene films over nickel catalyzed steel can enhance the tribological performance effectively. Graphene films can reduce the friction coefficient to 0.15 with 2–3 order reduction in wear.