Tribological Synergy of Filler Components in Multifunctional Polyimide Coatings

Abstract

Platelets as fillers in polymer coatings contribute to corrosion resistance by increasing the diffusion path of gases. The authors demonstrate that the same platelets can improve tribological properties and, thus, open a new way to design multifunctional polymer coatings. Improved corrosion resistance, low friction, and low wear are reported for polyimide composite coatings filled with a combination of boron nitride, pigment platelets, perfluoropolyether, and Si 3 N 4 particles. Contributions of different fillers to the tribological performance are explored for coatings with different filling protocols. The synergy of four components leads to the excellent tribological performance of the fully formulated coatings, while they cannot impart significant improvement in friction and wear when used separately.

MWCNT–Polyimide Fiber-Reinforced Composite for High-Temperature Tribological Applications

“…The most common approach involves incorporating dual-component fillers into the polymer matrix [10][11][12], including reinforcing fibers and lubricating agents. Typical reinforcing fibers include carbon fibers [13,14], glass fibers [14], and PBO fibers [15], while lubricating fillers may consist of graphite [16,17], molybdenum disulfide [18][19][20], boron nitride [21,22], among others. However, this approach, while endowing the matrix material with the respective advantages of the fillers, can also affect the crystallinity [23][24][25] of the polymer matrix and, in some cases, hinder molecular chain linking [26,27], resulting in the composite material not achieving the desired performance.…”