Influence of Morphologies of Synthetic Magnesium Silicate Hydroxide on Their Tribological Properties

摘要

Magnesium silicate hydroxide (MSH) with an ideal formula of Mg_3Si_2O_5(OH)_4 is the main composition of serpentine-group minerals. Serpentine particles as additives to oil can form a self-healing tribofilm on the sliding surfaces and significantly reduce the friction and wear [1]. In recent years, with the extensive applications of nanomaterials in different fields, there have been many investigations on the tribological properties of lubricants with nanoparticles added [2]. However, nano-sized serpentine powders are scarcely prepared by high-energy mechanical ball-milling which is not suitable to the applications as lubricant additives and clarification of its tribological mechanisms. Synthesized MSH nanoparticles can solve this problem to a certain extent. However, in the existing literatures, only Chang et al [3] used synthetically-prepared lamellate MSH nanoparticles as the polyalphaolefin base oil (PAO) additives and found an amorphous DLC self-healing film containing SiOx formed on the sliding surfaces. The main goal of this work is to explore the tribological behaviors of synthetized MSH nanoparticles with different morphologies in a pure PAO oil.