Investigation of carbon nanotube and zinc oxide as additive for enhanced lubricant performance

This project reports on the use of carbon nanotubes and zinc oxide as additives in order to increase the operational characteristics of conventional lubricants. The objective of this project is to investigate the thermo-physical and tribological properties of conventional lubricants dispersed with nanoparticles in order to improve the operational characteristics of the nanolubricant thus reduce friction and wear of the system. In this study, the tested lubricants are prepared by dispersing nanoparticles into base lubricant at five different concentrations as 0.5 % vol, 1.0 % vol, 1.5 % vol, 2.0 % and 2.5 % vol, have their properties tested and be compared against the standard lubricants. Experimental results shown that the thermal conductivities and flash points of the base lubricants dispersed with both types of nanoparticles have increased with the higher percentage of nanoparticles concentrations. The pour points data have shown the decrement values when dispersed with both types of nanoparticles at higher concentrations. Adding the carbon nanotube has decreased the pH values of the samples whereas the zinc oxide shown a reverse pattern for pH values. As a conclusion, dispersion of carbon nanotubes and zinc oxide as additives have improved the operational characteristics of the conventional lubricants