Impact of Ag on the microstructure and tribological behaviors of adaptive ZrMoN-Ag composite lubricating films

Solid lubricating films have great advantages in extreme operating conditions. In this research, silver (Ag) was doped into the ZrMoN composite film to develop a composite polyphase structure with enhanced mechanical and tribological properties. A series of ZrMoN-Ag composite films with different Ag content were prepared. The results show that the composition phases of the composite films are fcc-Mo2N, fcc-ZrN, and nano crystalline fcc-Ag was dispersed in the films. The ZrMoN-Ag composite films exhibited excellent mechanical properties with a hardness of 27.6 GPa and elastic modulus of 286.8 GPa. In addition, the ZrMoN-Ag composite film with Ag content of 11.88 at.% possessed the advantage of low friction coefficient in a wide temperature range, attributing mainly to the synergetic effect of Ag phase and friction oxidation products. This work provides a promising solution for designing solid self-lubrication composite in wide temperature domain. (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.

Automated summary

In this study, silver was doped into ZrMoN composite film to develop a composite polyphase structure with enhanced mechanical and tribological properties. The composite film exhibited excellent mechanical properties and had the advantage of low friction coefficient in a wide temperature range.