The advance of new equipment technology imposes stricter requirements on the properties of basic materials. Globally, up to 80% of components are damaged every year due to different forms of wear, and improving the surface mechanical property of materials contributes to prolonging their service life. Given that traditional metal materials cannot meet the needs, metal matrix composites provide new opportunities. Recently, JLU Prof. Zhao Hongwei’s team has obtained new progress in the surface modification of nanocomposites. The relevant paper entitled “Enhanced surface properties of a graphene oxide reinforced high-entropy alloy composite prepared by spark plasma sintering” was published in the prestigious academic journalNanoscale, and selected as the inside front cover paper in the current issue.
High-entropy alloy-based composites with different concentrations (0.3 wt%, 0.6 wt%, and 1.0 wt%) of graphene oxide reinforcement phase were prepared based on spark plasma sintering technology. The excellent mechanical properties and self-lubricating effect of graphene oxide have greatly improved the hardness and wear resistance of high-entropy alloy itself. Meanwhile, the experimental result indicates that the more graphene oxide content, the better the surface mechanical properties of the composites, and the composites show the best mechanical properties when the doping amount is 0.6 wt%. Subsequently, the mechanical properties of the composites degrade as the doping amount of graphene oxide increases. Through analysis, it is found that the composite powder will agglomerate during sintering if graphene oxide with nano-reinforcement phase is doped too much.
The research was sponsored by the National Natural Science Fund (51875241) and the Natural Science Fund Key Program of Jilin Province (YDZJ202101ZYTS129). Academician Ren Luquan of the Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering, Ministry of Education and SMAE Prof. Zhao Hongwei gave theoretical guidance. Doctoral student Zhang Wei is the first author of the paper and Prof. Ma Zhichao is the corresponding author.
Link to the paper: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2NR00742H
