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Silane Treatment of Diamond-Like Carbon: Improvement of Hydrophobicity, Oleophobicity, and Humidity Tolerance of Friction

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Abstract

Hydrophobicity and humidity tolerance of the low friction behavior of hydrogenated diamond-like carbon (H-DLC) were improved via surface modification using vapor-phase chemical reactions with organic silanes at 250–280 °C. Water and hexadecane contact angles increased after silane treatments. Unlike pristine H-DLC which loses ultra-low friction behavior as soon as relative humidity (RH) increases to a few percent, silane-treated H-DLC films maintained a low friction behavior (with a coefficient less than 0.08) up to 30 % RH. Elemental analysis of the transfer films accumulated on the balls after friction tests indicated that the silane molecules not only decorated the topmost surface of the H-DLC, but also penetrated into and reacted with the subsurface. Surface roughness, water adsorption behavior, and hardness measurements also showed that silane treatment affected the surface morphology and subsurface porosity of the H-DLC film.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. CMMI-1131128). Additional support was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. The authors acknowledged Dr. Osman Eryilmaz for preparing H-DLC samples on silicon substrates for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Ala Alazizi & Seong H. Kim

  2. SilcoTek Corporation, Bellefonte, PA, 16823, USA

    David Smith

  3. Energy Systems Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, 60439, USA

    Ali Erdemir

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  1. Ala Alazizi
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  2. David Smith
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  3. Ali Erdemir
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  4. Seong H. Kim
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Correspondence to Seong H. Kim.

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Alazizi, A., Smith, D., Erdemir, A. et al. Silane Treatment of Diamond-Like Carbon: Improvement of Hydrophobicity, Oleophobicity, and Humidity Tolerance of Friction. Tribol Lett 63, 43 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-016-0733-4

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