Mechanism of Wear with Functionalized Nanoparticles

Venue: Polo F.Ferrari 2 – via Sommarive 9 - Trento. Seminar Room, h. 11:00

Pranesh B. Aswath, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

Nanoparticles have found extensive applications in a variety of fields ranging from medicine to aerosols to magnetics. In recent years, nanoparticles are also being considered as vehicles to deliver specific functionality to surfaces to improve their tribological properties such as friction, adhesion and wear. In this context we are using nanoparticles to deliver desired anti-wear and anti-friction chemistries to rubbings surfaces to improve their properties. Plasma functionalization was used to develop a core-shell structure with multiple layers of additive chemistry with tailored properties. These functionalized nanoparticles were dispersed in a lubricant and the tribological properties of these lubricants were evaluated.

The results obtained clearly reveal that the addition of the plasma functionalized PTFE nanoparticles to the base oil with ZDDP provide a very significant improvement in reducing wear.