Observation on Cetyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide Addition as Cationic Surfactant on Water-based Carbon Microfluid Performance for Quench Medium in Heat Treatment Process

Abstract

Quenching takes an important part in the heat treatment process that controls the microstructure, thus enhance its mechanical properties. The heat treatment process starts with heating at an elevated temperature, holding time then rapid cooling to room temperature. It requires a medium with a good thermal conductivity that can be achieved by the addition of nanoparticles to the quench medium, referred to as nanofluids. In this research, carbon particles were prepared by the top-down method, where the reduction of carbon particle was done by planetary ball-mill for 15 hours at 500 rpm. Cetyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide is utilized as a cationic surfactant in order to reduce agglomeration at suspended particles thus increase quenching efficiency. Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM), and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDX) were used to observe the composition of material, particle size and particle morphology, and the change of the surface. Initial characterization by FE-SEM showed that the particle size after milling was averaged roughly at 15 m, therefore, it was still not in the nanometer range. However, EDS result confirmed that the powder used in this research were 99% carbon. Carbon microparticles were added as the particle to distilled water as the microfluid base. Water-based carbon microfluid with a volume of 100 ml was produced by the two-step method, by mixing carbon microparticles at 0.1 wt%, and 0.5 wt% in various concentration of cationic surfactant of 1 wt%, 3 wt%, and 5wt % respectively. Samples of AISI 1045 or JIS S45C carbon steels were heat treated by austenizing at 1000°C in a heating furnace, followed by rapid quenching in microfluid as the medium quench resulting on cooling rate diagram. Mechanical properties and microstructures of the quenched samples will be observed by conducting hardness examination and metallography observation to analyze the effect of various carbon and surfactant concentration used in the water-based carbon microfluid quench medium.