Effect of carbon nanohorns on nanofriction and wear reduction in dry and liquid environments

Nanomanipulation and Nanotribology of Nanoparticles and Nanotubes Using Atomic Force Microscopy

“…Further reductions in friction and wear were obtained when nano-objects were submerged in water, dodecane, and glycerol [25][26][27]. Reductions in friction and wear as a result of the presence of nano-objects are believed to occur through rolling, sliding, and dragging of nanoobjects as depicted in Fig.…”

“…10.2d, e. In the case of CNH nanoparticles, the additional roughness provided by the nanohorns can further reduce the contact area of the nanoparticles. This together with their low meniscus force contribution to adhesion further enhances the ability to reduce friction and wear [27].…”

“…In manipulation studies with an AFM under dry conditions, several groups have demonstrated the contact area and relative humidity dependence of friction force [11,25,29,30,35]. Studies carried out in liquid environments have shown reductions in friction force [25][26][27]. For tribological applications on the micro-/nanoscale, increasing the lifetime and efficiency of individual components of systems is crucial to the commercialization of micro-/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) [3].…”

“…Studies have been carried out in dry conditions on the macroscale [5, 25-27, 32, 39], microscale using a surface force apparatus (SFA) [43,45], and the nanoscale using an AFM [11, 18, 22, 24-27, 29, 30, 35, 38, 40]. In liquid conditions studies have also been carried out on the macroscale [5,9,10,16,17,20,21,[25][26][27]33], microscale, using an SFA [1,15], and nanoscale using an AFM [25][26][27]34].…”

“…In nanotribological studies using an AFM, reductions in friction and wear were observed when Au, silica, and CNH nanoparticles and MoS 2 and WS 2 nanotubes were used as lubricants in dry conditions [25][26][27]30]. Further reductions in friction and wear were obtained when nano-objects were submerged in water, dodecane, and glycerol [25][26][27].…”