Wear behavior of graphene/alumina composite

In the present work, the dry sliding behavior of a graphene/alumina composite material was studied against alumina in air. The tests were carried out in a reciprocating wear tester with an applied load of 20 N, a sliding speed of 0.06 m s−1 and a sliding distance of up to 10 km. Under the testing conditions, the graphene/ceramic composite showed approximately half the wear rate and a 10% lower friction coefficient than the monolithic alumina. It has been found that this behavior is related to the presence of graphene platelets adhered to the surface of friction that form a self-lubricating layer which provides enough lubrication in order to reduce both wear rate and friction coefficient, as compared to the alumina/alumina tribological system.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) under the Project MAT2012-38645. The Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation supported this work by Contract no. 14.577.21.0089, unique identifier of contract RFMEFI57714X0089.. Anton Smirnov has been supported by JAE-Pre Programme 2010.Peer Reviewe