Tribological performance evaluation of blended lubricants incorporated with organic polymer

Abstract

Eco-friendly lubricants have drawn a lot of interest in the lubrication industry as a way of promoting global sustainability in response to the growing environmental pollution danger posed by the use of petroleum-based lubricants. As a result of these, developing lubricants with organic additives stands as a promising technique in solving the environmental challenges caused by non-degradable materials. This research investigates the effect of bio-based water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) (EC) carboxylmethyl cellulose (CMC) polymer in different base lubricants as well as under different volumetric blend to determine their compatibility effect on lowering friction and wear using base rapeseed oil (BRO) and mineral oil (MO) as a base lubricant sample. High frequency reciprocating rig tribo-tester machine was used in the experiment, followed by substrate surface analysis via energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. The additives were evaluated for their potential to improve tribology in terms of friction, surface roughness and wear reduction, load-carrying capacity, and mechanism of repair. Testing the additive concentrations, produced recommendable result at 0.8 mass% EC-CMC. The best performance was obtained when BRO70/MO30 was blended with 0.8 mass% EC-CMC. When compared to base BRO and MO lubricants under 80 N, 0.8 mass% BRO70/MO30 reduced the coefficient of friction and wear scar diameter by 44%, 32%, and 33%, 21% respectively. However, it was shown that nanoparticles had greater tribological performance at higher working capacities owing to the rapid and active tribo-film formation.