Study on Wear Characteristics of Lubricants with Nano-diamond Additives

Multiple additives can help improve the performance of generally used lubricants. These additives include MoS2, cadmium, chloride, indium, sulfide, and phosphide, which are harmful to both humans and the environment. Thus, researchers in this industry have been trying to reduce the use of these additives by finding alternatives. Nanodiamonds are one of these candidates. Nanodiamond particles are very hard, chemically stable, and highly heat-conductive. This research involved uniformly dispersing nanodiamond particles in marine engine oils via a matrix synthesis method at various concentrations (0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 1.0 wt). Friction and wear tests involved constant loads on ball-on-disk specimens, where the ball was AISI 51200 steel, the disk was AISI 1020 steel, and the sliding speed was 0.217 m/s. The lowest wear occurred at a suitable concentration of nanodiamonds (0.3 wt). However, excessive amounts of nanodiamonds caused them to act as abrasive debris because of their hardness, which increased the wear amount. The friction coefficient decreased as the nanodiamond concentration increased because their octagonal, almost spherical shape caused them to act as rolling contact elements between two surfaces.