| AVS 62nd International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Applied Surface Science | Thursday Sessions |
| Session AS-ThM |
| Session: | Practical Surface Analysis III: Multiple-technique Problem-solving and Structure-property Correlations |
| Presenter: | Lei Zhang, DuPont Central Research and Development |
| Authors: | L. Zhang, DuPont Central Research and Development G.S. Blackman, DuPont Central Research and Development C.P. Junk, DuPont Central Research and Development L. Amspacher, DuPont Central Research and Development K.G. Lloyd, DuPont Central Research and Development J.R. Marsh, DuPont Central Research and Development D.J. Kasprzak, DuPont Central Research and Development |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
In the past few years, polymer composites of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and alumina particles have attracted a lot of interest as a promising Ultra-Low Wear (ULW) material. It has been discovered that by adding a small amount of alumina additive (<5wt%) to PTFE, the wear rate of the PTFE is enhanced dramatically by over four orders of magnitude. Although this polymer composite system has shown its uniqueness and importance in the tribological research, the tribochemical mechanism has not been well understood.
To fully understand the chemistry that occurs during the tribology/wearing, it requires the precise design of experiments as well as applying integrated techniques to study the tribochemical process. In our studies, we investigated the tribochemical products by studying the unique chemistry of the transfer film formed at the composite and stainless steel interfaces during wearing. XPS, FTIR, and ToF-SIMS techniques have been applied to determine the chemistry of these tribochemical products as a function of number of sliding cycles. These characterization techniques have allowed us to understand the ultralow wear behavior and help to develop a conceptual framework for the ultralow wear material system.