A hardening layer of 70 mu m on T8 carbon steel was fabricated by plasma electrolytic carburizing (PEC) in glycerol solution at 380 V with 3 min treatment. The discharge process was characterized using optical emission spectroscopy (OES), and the electron temperature in plasma envelope was determined. Meanwhile, diffusion coefficient of carbon was calculated on the basis of carbon concentration profile. The tribological property of carburized steel under dry sliding against ZrO2 ball was measured by a ball disc friction and wear tester. The corrosion behaviors were evaluated by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). It was found that the carburized layer mainly contained alpha-Fe and Fe3C phases with maximum hardness of 620 HV. The PEC treatment significantly decreased the friction coefficient from 0.4 to 0.1. The wear rate of PEC treated steel was about 5.86 x 10(-6) mm(3)/N.m, which was less than 1/4 of T8 steel substrate. After PEC treatment, the wear and corrosion resistance of T8 steel were improved. Particularly, the pitting corrosion of steel substrate was obviously suppressed. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.