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Tribological Characteristics of Aqueous Graphene Oxide, Graphitic Carbon Nitride, and Their Mixed Suspensions

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Abstract

The tribological performance of graphene oxide (GO), graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4), and their mixed (g-C3N4/GO) aqueous suspensions was investigated. The 0.06 wt% GO, 0.06 wt% g-C3N4, and 0.06 wt% 1:1 g-C3N4/GO suspensions reduced the coefficient of friction (COF) by 37, 26 and 37% and wear mark radius by 19.1, 16.0 and 19.6%, respectively, in comparison with water. Pure g-C3N4 and GO suspensions showed unstable lubrication in the tests with relatively high loads and speeds, while the g-C3N4/GO mixed suspension had superior tribological performance in all tested conditions. This is because in the mixed suspension g-C3N4 agglomerates became smaller, and GO nanosheets exhibited fewer wrinkles and less stacking, which enabled the formation of a layer of tribo-composite film. As a result, the friction, wear and tribo-corrosion were reduced during sliding.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial supports from Baosteel under Project BA13012 and Australia Research Council (ARC) through Linkage Project (LP150100591). This work was performed in part at the Queensland node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF). ASH would like to acknowledge The University of Queensland (UQ) for the UQI Scholarship and the technical assistance from Drs. Heather Shewan and Barry Wood. JRS acknowledges the support from ARC Discovery Project P150104147 and that the tribology-fixture used in this study is on loan from Anton Paar.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Anshun He, Shuiquan Huang & Han Huang

  2. School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Jung-Ho Yun, Jason R. Stokes & Lianzhou Wang

  3. School of Mechanical, Materials and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia

    Zhengyi Jiang

  4. Research Institute (R&D Center), Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., Shanghai, 201900, China

    Sihai Jiao

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  1. Anshun He
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Correspondence to Han Huang.

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He, A., Huang, S., Yun, JH. et al. Tribological Characteristics of Aqueous Graphene Oxide, Graphitic Carbon Nitride, and Their Mixed Suspensions. Tribol Lett 66, 42 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-018-0992-3

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