Surface wear, friction and corrosion have always been among major challenges faced by industries globally which cause significant economic and energy losses yearly. The recent emergence of two dimensional (2D) MXenes in tribology as protective coatings is noteworthy due to their layered structure, tuneable properties, easy to shear ability, and capability of forming anti-corrosion wear resistant tribo-films. In this work, multiple layers of Ti3C2Tx MXene coatings were applied on stainless steel (SS) substrates via energy electrophoretic deposition (EPD) process at low voltage of 5 V to enhance tribology and anti-corrosion behaviour of substrates. The tribological performance was investigated by rotating ball-on-disk tribometry at 5 N load with rotating velocity and radius of 500 RPM and 3 mm respectively. The effect of multiple coating layers on microstructure and tribological performance was also investigated to optimize the coating thickness followed by the extensive characterization of MXene and developed coatings. Surface hardness and coating thickness increased proportionally with increase in number of coating layers resulting into the maximum values of 311.39 HV and 3.25 mu m respectively. Tribological performance confirmed significant reduction in coefficient of friction (COF) and specific wear rate for MXene coated samples compared to uncoated SS substrates. Precisely, two coating layers' sample (MX2) demonstrated the best performance achieving approximate 41.3% and 65.7% reduction in coefficient of friction (COF) and wear rate, respectively. Further, corrosion studies also confirmed the protective role of MXene layers and great anti-corrosion behaviour of MX2 sample with 72.2% protection efficiency.

Foreign