Tribological Properties of Aluminum Nanoparticles as Additives in an Aqueous Glycerol Solution

The object of this research is to investigate the tribological properties of glycerol lubricant with aluminum nanoparticles as an additive and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as the dispersive medium for iron to iron friction using a thrust collar tribotester. Meanwhile, the effects of different concentrations of aluminum nanoparticles, SDS, and deionized water in glycerol on tribology properties of iron to iron friction were studied. The experimental parameters were set up according to the Taguchi technique, their influence on the coefficient of friction (COF) and wear rate were examined by response surface methodology (RSM) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) methods. The analysis results were employed to optimize the parameters to obtain the best lubricant effects. The optimal combination of the parameters for both minimum COF and wear rate was found to be 0.6667 weight percent (wt %) of aluminum nanoparticles, 2 wt % of SDS, and 10 wt % of deionized water content of glycerol. The wear surface topography and the average roughness of the surface were also examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a Mitutoyo Surftest SJ-400 instrument. The results show that aluminum nanoparticles used as an additive in lubricant reduce the surface roughness of a collar remarkably. The energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) was utilized to confirm the deposition of aluminum nanoparticles on the collar surface leading to decreased friction and wear