Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 January 2011
In the current work we report results of tribological testing of stable colloidal dispersions of detonation nanodiamond (DND) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) in mineral oil based greases as well as in polyalphaolefin (PAO) oil. Testing has been performed on these formula-tions using ring-on-ring, shaft/bushing and four ball test techniques. The test results demon-strated significant improvements for tribological characteristics (friction coefficient, extreme pressure failure load and diameter of wear spot) for certain formulations. A strong synergistic effect when using a combination of DND/PTFE additives was observed by a sharp decrease of friction coefficient. It was also demonstrated that using DND with smaller aggregate size (10nm versus 150nm) resulted in better lubricating performance of PAO-based composition.