Tribological performance of DLC coating under aqueous solutions.

In the study, the hydrogen‐free diamond‐like carbon (DLC) coating was deposited on the surface of the Co‐Cr‐Mo alloy. Pin‐on‐plate tribotests were performed for the DLC‐coated CoCrMo specimen against un‐doped CoCrMo alloy under bovine serum albumin (BSA), NaCl solution, and distilled water. Results showed that the average coefficient of friction (COF) of the mating system was 0.08 under NaCl and 0.07 under distilled water, respectively. However, the dynamic COF under BSA lubrication was prone to increasing with testing time, and the average COF got to 0.12. The wear morphology of the pin was covered by the carbon transfer layer without BSA lubrication, and the formation of the transfer layer was a dynamic evolution process as wear debris adhesion, continuous transferring, and delamination. Oppositely, the transfer layer was inhibited under BSA lubrication due to the adsorption of the protein layer on the contact interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]