Tribological and tribocorrosion behavior of nickel sliding against oxide ceramics

Nickel is widely used as a coating material in electroplating because of its good corrosion and wear resistance even at high temperature. Tribocorrosion has been identified as one of the main degradation mechanisms of nickel. This study evaluated the tribocorrosion behavior of pure nickel in citrate buffer solution (pH 4.5) under controlled mechanical, chemical and electrochemical conditions as well as wear of pure nickel in dry condition sliding against alumina or zirconia balls, respectively. The results showed that the wear of nickel was higher in passive domain due to wear accelerated corrosion compared to that in the cathodic domain. Surprisingly, both alumina and zirconia were worn by nickel in tribocorrosion condition under passive potentials as well as in dry condition. However, in the cathodic domain, negligible wear was observed on the alumina and zirconia balls. The formation of mixed nickel and aluminum/zirconium oxides was proposed as the wear mechanism of alumina and zirconia.