Selection of an optimal abrasion wheel type for nano-coating wear studies under wet or dry abrasion conditions

Abstract

Polymer nanocomposites and nanocoatings have numerous potential applications in the indoor environment such as increasing scratch and wear resistance of flooring finishes. However, given concerns about the potential environmental and human health effects of nanomaterials, it is necessary to develop standardized methods to quantify nanomaterial release during usage of these products. We identified in a recent publication that the abrasion wheel used in mechanical wear studies of nano-enabled products can influence the quantity of released particles on the sample surface or may lead to biased results. However, all of the wheels used had significant limitations such as release of fragments from the wheel during abrasion, wearing of the wheel from the abrasion process, or not releasing a sufficient number of particles. In this study, we evaluated five different wheels (a typically used commercial wheel CW10 and four metallic wheels) for their application in abrasion studies on a nanocoating. The optimal wheel was a commercially available deep cross-patch, noncorrosive stainless steel metallic wheel which worked well under wet and dry conditions, did not release particles from itself, and yielded higher numbers of released particles on the nanocoating sample surface compared to some of the other wheels. These results can be used to help develop a standardized protocol for surface release of particles from nano-enabled products using the commercial rotary Taber abraser.