The Structure And Tribological Properties Of Titanium Carbide-derived Carbon

Carbide derived carbon (CDC) is a novel kind of composite carbon with a variety ofcarbon nanostructures. CDC is produced by selective etching of metal or non-metal atomsfrom a carbide crystal lattice by halogens, Due to the diversity and controllability of thestructure in CDC, making it own potential applications in many fields. At present, bothdomestic and international research on CDC focused on the electrochemical and energystorage areas, but the field of tribology research is still in its infancy stage.In this paper, titanium carbide derived carbon (TiC-CDC) coatings, which withdifferent structures and properties, were produced by selective etching of titanium carbideceramic using the chloride method by optimizing the process parameters (temperature,atmosphere, time, etc.). The structures in TiC-CDC coatings were characterized by X-raydiffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy (Raman), scanning electron microscope (SEM)and transmission electron microscope (TEM) Techniques. The tribology performanceswere tested on the UMT-3friction and wear tester under different conditions.The studies in this paper show that the producted carbon structures existes mainly inthe form of amorphous under the conditions of low temperature, low chlorine content andshort reaction time. On the contraral conditions, the carbon structures tend to be moreordered. TiC-CDC coating has similar laws of tribology under both dry friction and waterlubrication conditions. When the coating thickness is less than50μm, the tribologyperformance mainly depended upon the TiC particles, which is not converted thoroughlyinto carbon, the friction coefficient and wear rate significantly reduced with increasingcoating thickness. When the coating thickness is larger than50μm, the tribologyperformance mainly depended upon the amorphous carbon, the friction coefficient andwear rate reduced with increasing content of amorphous carbon. In addition, TiC-CDCcoating combined well with TiC substrate, and its tribology performance can be betterrealized with increasing the load and speed.