Effect of Base Oil on the Anti-Wear Performance of Multi-Walled Carbon Nano-tubes (MWCNT)

Abstract

The Multi-Walled Carbon Nano-tubes (MWCNT) are employed as anti-wear additives in mineral oil. The high specific surface area of MWCNT causes agglomeration and suitable surfactant is required to maintain MWCNT in the de-agglomerated state. However, the addition of surfactant in the base oil may cause variations in its tribological performance. The effectiveness of MWCNT as anti-wear additive may be dependent on the properties of the base oil. The present experimental work aims to study these effects. The experiments have been conducted to determine the optimum quantity of MWCNT that is able to minimize the wear of the tribo pairs. The nano lubricants containing varying quantities of MWCNT were prepared in two different base oils using the same surfactant to study these effects. The wear tests were conducted on block on disk test setup to determine the anti-wear performance of the nano lubricants. The wear of the block is measured in terms of its weight loss. The results of the wear tests are reported.