Laser Cladding Induced Spherical Graphitic Phases by Super-Assembly of Graphene-Like Microstructures and the Antifriction Behavior

Fei Weng; Cheng Hu; Runhao Zhang; Huijun Yu; Jiaqing Liu; Meng Wang; Yong Li; Lei Xie; Chuanzhong Chen; Kang Liang; Dongyuan Zhao; Biao Kong

doi:10.1021/acscentsci.0c01365

Laser Cladding Induced Spherical Graphitic Phases by Super-Assembly of Graphene-Like Microstructures and the Antifriction Behavior

ACS Cent Sci. 2021 Feb 24;7(2):318-326. doi: 10.1021/acscentsci.0c01365. Epub 2020 Dec 27.

Authors

Fei Weng^{1

2}, Cheng Hu³, Runhao Zhang⁴, Huijun Yu^{1

2}, Jiaqing Liu⁴, Meng Wang⁴, Yong Li⁴, Lei Xie⁵, Chuanzhong Chen³, Kang Liang⁶, Dongyuan Zhao⁵, Biao Kong⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of High-efficiency and Clean Mechanical Manufacture (Ministry of Education) and National Demonstration Center for Experimental Mechanical Engineering Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Ji'nan 250061, P. R. China.
² Shenzhen Research Institute of Shandong University, Shenzhen 518057, Guangdong P. R. China.
³ Key Laboratory for Liquid-Solid Structural Evolution and Processing of Materials (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Ji'nan 250061, P. R. China.
⁴ National Supercomputer Research Center of Advanced Materials, Advanced Materials Institute, Shandong Analysis and Test Center, Shandong Academy of Sciences, Jinan 250014, P. R. China.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Key Lab of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, iChEM, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, P. R. China.
⁶ School of Chemical Engineering and Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.

Abstract

Laser cladding coatings with excellent wear resistance behaviors are prepared on a titanium alloy substrate with a new precursor material system comprising nanoscale B₄C and Ni60A self-fluxing alloy powder. Structural analysis reveals the existence of micron-size spherical or nearly spherical graphitic phases in the prepared coatings, which are composed of graphene-like microstructures closely associated with other reinforcement phases of high hardness such as TiC and CrB. The formation mechanism of these graphitic phases involves in situ superassembly of uncombined C atoms via repeated growth and reorientation of the graphene-like microstructures and is closely related to the laser processing parameters as well as the precursor compositions. The coexistence of these heterogeneous phases enable the obtained coatings with high wear resistance and low friction coefficient. It was found that the wear resistance of the coating has a remarkable 43.67 times enhancement than that of the titanium alloy while simultaneously showing a low friction coefficient (∼0.35). The understanding of the formation mechanism on the graphene-related novel microstructures with significantly improved mechanical properties is expected to lay the foundation for future developments and applications of graphene and its related carbon materials, such as large-scale production and further incorporation into composite materials with desired local structures.