Study of deposit and friction films of overbased calcium sulphonate by PM‐IRRAS spectroscopy

This paper deals with the study of deposit and friction films of overbased calcium sulphonate diluted in mineral oil, on metal surfaces. The technique used for this work is Infrared Reflection Absorption Spectroscopy by Fourier Transform and Polarisation Modulation (PM‐IRRAS or PM FTIR). The spectra obtained from this method contain only information on the absorption occurring in the immediate neighbourhood (⩽40 nm) of the metallic substrate and allow the average orientation for molecules adsorbed on metals to be deduced. This study shows that the adsorption of overbased calcium sulphonate on a steel surface leads to a preferential orientation of the sulphonate chains perpendicular to the surface and to a preferential orientation of the carbonate, the c axis being perpendicular to the surface. During friction, the sulphonate chains are ejected from the contact zone. We observed that the boundary film consists mainly of calcium carbonate, which crystallises into calcite.