Study on the properties of a ε-Fe₃N-based magnetic lubricant prepared by DBD plasma

The ε-Fe₃N-based magnetic lubricant which is stable and high saturation magnetization has been prepared by a homemade DBD device under the atmospheric pressure. The results show that the NH3 flow rate, the applied peak-to-peak voltage and the mass ratio of surfactant and carrier lubricant have important effects on the phase structure, the magnetic properties, the size of ferroparticles and the stability of the ε-Fe3N-based magnetic lubricant. TEM images show the ε-Fe₃N ferroparticles are dispersed in the carrier lubricant homogeneously, and the cluster phenomenon is not observed. The stable ε-Fe3N-based magnetic lubricant with the saturation magnetization of 50.11 mT and the mean ferroparticle size of 11 nm is prepared successfully. The main particles of the atmospheric-pressure Ar/NH3/Fe(CO)5 DBD plasma are NH, N, N⁺, Fe, N₂, Ar, H_α, and CO; NH is a decomposition product of NH₃. Fe and N active radicals are two elementary species in the preparation of the ε-Fe3N-based magnetic lubricant in the atmospheric-pressure DBD plasma. There are two discharge modes for DBD plasma, namely, multi-pulse APGD and filamentary discharge. By increasing the applied peak-to-peak voltage from 4600 to 7800 V, the discharge mode is changed from single-pulse APGD with filamentary discharge to two-pulse APGD with filamentary discharge, and the Lissajous figure also converts from a quadrilateral with one step to two steps on the right-hand side.