Electroless Deposition of Ni-P Coatings on HNBR for Low Friction Rubber Seals

• Autor(a) principal: Vasconcelos, Beatriz
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Serra, Ricardo, Oliveira, João, Fonseca, Carlos
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• DOI: 10.3390/coatings10121237
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/105867; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings10121237
• topic: electroless plating; Ni-P; surface functionalization; rubber coating; antifriction

This paper reports a simple and cost-e ective procedure to coat hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR) with a well-adherent Ni-P film by using the electroless plating method. A HNBR surface functionalization process was first optimized, creating an interpenetrating network with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). Silver nanoparticles were deposited on PVP and acted as catalysts for the Ni-P film deposition, eliminating the expensive tin-palladium sensitization/activation step. A homogeneous, low phosphorous Ni-P film was obtained after 60–120 min of plating in an alkaline bath, with an average thickness of 3 to 10 m, respectively. The PVP internetwork played an important role on the strong adhesion of the film, 1.0 0.5 MPa. The tribological behavior of Ni-P-plated HNBR samples was studied for 1, 5 and 10 N applied loads under dry sliding on a pin-on-disc configuration and the coe cient of friction (CoF) was reduced by ~30–49%, compared to uncoated HNBR (loads 1–5N). Based on these results, Ni-P-coated rubber can be regarded as a novel solution for enhancement of the tribological behavior of dynamic seals; it can be regarded as a means to avoid machinery failure. This method o ers an alternative to the diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings.