Tribological behavior of epoxy nanocomposites under corrosive environment: effect of high-performance boron nitride nanoplatelet

This paper sheds light on the impact of corrosive service conditions on the mechanical and tribological performances of epoxy nanocomposites containing 0.5 wt.% hexagonal boron nitride (BN) nanoplatelets as fillers. The composite samples were aged in 10 wt% H2SO4 solutions by immersion for 504 hours. Variation in mechanical and tribological behaviors during immersion was investigated using tensile and ball-on disk tests. The ball-on disk tests were performed at room temperature under a 10 N constant load and 0.8 m/s speed for 3000 seconds. The high-performance BN nanoplatelets improved neat Epoxy’s tensile strength, toughness, and wear performance by 17%, 27%, and 56%, respectively. The aging results revealed that H2SO4 exposure deteriorates the mechanical performance of all epoxy composite samples, even though BN/Epoxy nanocomposites exhibited better resistance to the corrosive environment. In contrast, the tribological performance increased with the acidic solution exposure that acts as a lubricant and forms a corrosive protective layer after the immersion of 504 hours.