Preparation and oil lubrication of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanospheres

Abstract

Polymer block materials usually have good lubricating properties and their nano particles as lubricants are well anticipated. However, the preparation processes of polymer nanoparticles are complicated and their applications are confined. The evaluation of particles size and preparation process of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanospheres are described. Reducing the number of PVDF chains when forming a crystal ball does often make the diameter smaller. The preparation process undergoes crystal nucleation, crystal growth and separation, to form nano particles. In this study, PVDF nanospheres were prepared under acetanilide (AA) solvent, which played an important role to separate and disperse PVDF nanospheres. Meanwhile, TGA, FT-IR, XRD and XPS characterizations revealed that AA was inside the PVDF nanospheres. In order to obtain pure PVDF nanoparticles, AA was washed by anhydrous ethanol. A strategy was proposed to promote the preparation method. Polymer nanoparticles were stably dispersed and their agglomeration was controlled. In the present work, a series of tribological tests were applied to evaluate the lubrication effect of PVDF nanoparticles. The results manifested that PVDF nanoparticles with low concentration possessed good lubricating property because of their film formation on the contact surface. The lubricating mechanism of PVDF nanoparticles was illuminated. The current study has potential applications in preparing polymer nanoparticles with good lubrication.