Facile formulation of graphene oxide modified commercial polyurea grease and its enhanced tribological capability under extremely high contact stress

Abstract

Grease lubricants have been widely applied to the rubbing components to increase the operation stability and reliability. In this study, graphene oxide modified polyurea grease was prepared by formulating different amounts of exfoliated expandable graphite (EG) into commercial polyurea grease with combined mechanical agitation and grinding processes, tribological characteristics of graphene oxide modified polyurea grease were subsequently evaluated under extremely higher contacting stress. Among all the formulated polyurea grease specimens, polyurea grease with 2.0 wt.% graphene oxide displays better capabilities of minimizing friction and wear. In particular, the wear loss reduces considerably by 80% meanwhile the averaged friction coefficient decreases to 0.10, as referenced with existing polyurea grease. The improved tribological behavior is proposed to be associated with the in‐situ produced graphene oxide solids that enhances extremely lower shearing ability and promotes the fatigue resistance of grease, as well as its desired chemical compatibility with resulting iron sulfide tribofilm. Particularly, graphene oxide works as the dispersed precipitate within the dense iron sulfide/oxide layer induced from ZDDP that covers on the steel substrate.