High wear-resistant performance of thermosetting polyimide reinforced by graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) under high temperature

The two-dimensional (2D) material of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) has shown great promise for tribo-materials due to special molecular structure. In this work, we report an effective approach to enhance anti-wear of thermosetting polyimide (TPI) by filling with g-C3N4 under high temperature. TPI composite (TPT-1) and g-C3N4 were firstly prepared. Then, friction and wear behavior of TPT-1 was studied and comparatively evaluated with neat resin from room temperature to 350 °C. As a result, the wear resistance of TPI was able to significantly improve and an much lower wear rate (7.29 × 10−7 mm3/N m) was achieved at 350 °C. Moreover, mechanism of friction and wear was demonstrated that transfer film formed by introducing g-C3N4 with high E-modulus and hardness could effectively share the load with TPI and prevent from further abrasion of resin in contact surfaces. This work could help researchers to design a new TPI tribo-material used at high temperature.