Adhesion of a Vibration Mechanochemical Solid-Lubricant MoS₂ Coating

It is shown that in the course of vibration-wave treatment a solid lubricant coating is formed on steel from molybdenum-disulfide powder. The morphological features of the coating are investigated. Using electron probe microanalysis and infrared spectroscopy, it is found that the chemical composition of the coating both during vibration processing and after friction tests remains unchanged. A theoretical estimation is performed for the energy of adhesion between the MoS₂ coating and the protected steel surface using a model that takes into account the pairwise and triple potential interactions between the particles of the contacting materials. It is shown that the adhesive interaction between MoS₂ particles and steel is significantly more intense than the adhesive interaction in the system of MoS₂–MoS₂ particles. The energy of adhesive interaction is calculated for the MoS₂–MoS₂ (–0.04 × 10¹⁰ J/m³), MoS₂–Fe pairs (–0.54 × 10¹⁰ J/m³). Theoretical calculations confirm the results of experiments on studying the adhesive properties of the MoS₂ coating.