A New Antiwear Additive/Surface Pretreatment for PFPE Liquid Lubricants

Pin-on-disk tribology experiments were conducted on a perfluoro-polyalkylelher (PFPE) liquid lubricant with and without a new PFPE lubricant antiwear additive material: a silane. It was found that the silane provided moderate improvement in the antiwear performance of the PFPE lubricant when applied to the metallic surface as a surface coating or when added to the PFPE as a dispersion (emulsion). Slightly belter results were obtained by using the combination of a surface coating and an emulsion of the silane. The silane emulsions or coalings did not affect the friction properties of the lubricant. Micro-Fourier transformation infrared (μFFIR) spectroscopy analysis was performed to study silane transfer films and the degradation of the PFPE. The silane was found to mitigate degradation of the PFPE which may have been the major reason for the improved antiwear performance, observed. Presented at the 50th Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois May 14-19, 1995