Design and Characterization of Lubricants Based on Functionalized Nanoparticles

  1. Mariño Fernández, Fátima
Supervised by:
  1. Josefa Fernández Director
  2. Enriqueta R. López Iglesias Director

Defence university: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

Fecha de defensa: 24 October 2023

Committee:
  1. Amaya Igartua Aranzabal Chair
  2. Alfredo J. Amigo Pombo Secretary
  3. Nuria Espallargas Alvarez Committee member
Department:
  1. Department of Applied Physics

Type: Thesis

Abstract

The main objective of this PhD thesis is to design and characterize efficient nanolubricants based on three polyalphaolefins (PAOs) and nanoparticles (NPs) of metal oxides or ceramics coated with organic acids for wind turbine gearboxes and electric transmissions of electric vehicles. First, preliminary tests and an in-depth literature survey on the time stability and tribological behavior of nanodispersions containing chemically modified nanoadditives were performed. Then, the thermophysical and tribological properties of PAO nanolubricants containing coated NPs (ZnO-OA, TiO2-OA, or SiO2-SA) were evaluated; in addition, possible tribological mechanisms were analyzed by confocal Raman microscopy. All the coated NPs studied improve the tribological behavior of their base oil, being the best the SiO2-SA NPs.