Remarkable improvement of the wear resistance of poly(vinylidene difluoride) by incorporating polyimide powder and carbon nanofibers

Poly(vinylidene difluoride) (PVDF) composites reinforced via adding different fillers have attracted wide attention in the field of dielectric materials, but few have been reported in the tribological area. In this paper, the effect of polyimide (PI) powder and carbon nanofibers (CF) as reinforcement phases on the friction and wear performance of PVDF composites has been investigated. It was found that PI powder enhances the mechanical and tribological properties of PVDF and especially as the content of the PI powder reaches 5 wt%. In addition, CF and PI exhibited synergistic effect on the tribological properties of PVDF. With PVDF containing 5 wt% PI powder and 20 wt% CF, the friction and wear behavior of the PVDF composite showed the best performance. PVDF, PI powder and CF can form a consistent network structure, which prevents the polymer molecular chains from moving or deformation, decreasing the wear loss of PVDF composites.