Tribological properties of surface modified Cu nanoflakes prepared by plasma assisted ball milling

Abstract

Surface modified nano-flake Cu powder was prepared by plasma assisted ball milling by adding stearic acid as a process agent and its tribological properties were tested. The results indicate that the Cu particle exhibiting an excellent superplasticity has severe plastic deformation induced by a synergistic effect of plasma high-rate heating and electroplasticity, and the 20nm-thick flake-like Cu particles are obtained after 5h milling time of plasma milling. These nano-flake Cu particles owning oleophobicity characteristics exhibit good dispersion in the 40CA marine lubricating oil due to that the surface of Cu nano-flake adsorbs and chemically bonds with some non-polar groups under the plasma assisted ball milling with stearic acid. The severe deformation of the nano-flake Cu particles displaying high activation are easily adsorbed and spread on the surface of the friction counterpart in the process of sliding, which promotes a better wear resistance for compound lubricant with nano-flake Cu addition. Under a high rotating speed and excessive load, the nano-flake Cu powder provides excellent friction-reducing and self-repairing characters and improves the anti-wear performance under an extreme pressure condition.

Keywords

• Cu nanoflake
• plasma assisted ball-milling
• surface modification
• superplasticity
• tribological property