Graphene Nanosheets as Lubricant Additives: Effects of Nature and Size on Lubricating Performance

Lixia Huo; Jinshan Guo; Hanjun Hu; Kaifeng Zhang; Hui Zhou; Peng Liu

doi:10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c01322

Graphene Nanosheets as Lubricant Additives: Effects of Nature and Size on Lubricating Performance

Langmuir. 2022 Aug 9;38(31):9678-9685. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c01322. Epub 2022 Jul 27.

Authors

Lixia Huo^{1

2}, Jinshan Guo¹, Hanjun Hu², Kaifeng Zhang², Hui Zhou², Peng Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Applied Organic Chemistry and Laboratory of Special Function Materials and Structure Design of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
² Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Vacuum Technology and Physics, Lanzhou Institute of Physics, Lanzhou 730010, Gansu, China.

PMID: 35894785
DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c01322

Abstract

Graphene has been widely investigated as an additive in lubricating oils to enhance their tribological performance. Here, the effects of the nature and size of the graphene nanosheets on the tribological performance were investigated with the hydrogenated hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene dioctoate (O-HHTPB-O) as a model base oil after alkylation of the graphene oxide (GO) of different sizes with 1-dodecylamine (DA) and reduction. The 1-dodecylamine-modified graphene oxide (DA-GO) showed better dispersibility in the O-HHTPB-O base oil and subsequently better tribological performance than the reduced one (DA-rGO) for both the larger graphene oxide nanosheets (GO_L) and the smaller graphene oxide nanosheets (GO_S). The DA-GO_S exhibited better wear-reduction performance than the DA-GO_L, owing to its smaller size and higher polarity. Although the DA-GO_L could be ground during the friction, the friction and wear in the original period affected the complete period lubricating performance.