Volume 10 Issue 4 ( December )

In response to concerns about combustion engines' negative effect on the environment and the use of petroleum-based lubricants to address friction and wear issues, there is growing interest in the development of electric vehicles (EVs) in solving the ICEs pollution challenges. To achieve the expected performance of EVs, the use of suitable bio-lubricants is necessary. In this work, novel lubricants were formulated from jatropha oil as base lubricant using Polytetrafluoroethylene and hexagonal boron nitrate (h-BN) as additives to address the issues of friction and wear during lubrication. The investigation employed a sensitive NANOVEA T50 tribometer machine. The additives' effectiveness in enhancing tribological performance was assessed in terms of their capacity to reduce friction, wear, and load carrying ability. The substrate morphology and elemental distribution on lubricated worn surfaces was done using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray (EDX). Under higher loads (25 N), blended 0.5 wt.% poly. + 0.6 wt.% h-BN reduced friction and wear, but at lower (5 N) working conditions, it performed poorly due to lack of frictional energy for the film formation. However, as compared to base jatropha oil, the 0.5 wt% poly. + 0.6 wt% h-BN provided the best friction (0.0315) and wear scar diameter (461.027 μm), among all the nano lubricants under 25 N. According to the findings, the higher the working condition if employed in EVs, the better the tribological performance of the new formulated nano lubricants, resulting in enhanced system performance.

Keywords: Jatropha oil, Polytetrafluoroethylene polymer, h-BN, lubrication, Electric Vehicle