Toward Robust Macroscale Superlubricity on Engineering Steel Substrate

Panpan Li; Pengfei Ju; Li Ji; Hongxuan Li; Xiaohong Liu; Lei Chen; Huidi Zhou; Jianmin Chen

doi:10.1002/adma.202002039

Toward Robust Macroscale Superlubricity on Engineering Steel Substrate

Adv Mater. 2020 Sep;32(36):e2002039. doi: 10.1002/adma.202002039. Epub 2020 Jul 26.

Authors

Panpan Li^{1

2}, Pengfei Ju³, Li Ji^{1

2}, Hongxuan Li^{1

2}, Xiaohong Liu^{1

2}, Lei Chen^{1

2}, Huidi Zhou^{1

2}, Jianmin Chen^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Wear and Protection of Materials, State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
² Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
³ Shanghai Aerospace Equipment Manufacture, Shanghai, 200245, China.

PMID: 32715515
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202002039

Abstract

"Structural superlubricity" is an important fundamental phenomenon in modern tribology that is expected to greatly diminish friction in mechanical engineering, but now is limited to achieve only at nanoscale and microscale in experiment. A novel principle for broadening the structural superlubricating state based on numberless micro-contact into macroscale superlubricity is demonstrated. The topography of micro-asperities on engineering steel substrates is elaborately constructed to divide the macroscale surface contact into microscale point contacts. Then at each contact point, special measures such as pre-running-in period and coating heterogeneous covalent/ionic or ionic/ionic nanocomposite of 2D materials are devised to manipulate the interfacial ordered layer-by-layer state, weak chemical interaction, and incommensurate configuration, thereby satisfying the prerequisites responsible for structural superlubricity. Finally, the robust superlubricating states on engineering steel-steel macroscale contact pairs are achieved with significantly reduced friction coefficient in 10^-3 magnitude, extra-long antiwear life (more than 1.0 × 10⁶ laps), and good universality to wide range of materials and loads, which can be of significance for the industrialization of "structural superlubricity."

Keywords: 2D nanomaterials; engineering steel substrates; macroscale; structural superlubricity.

Abstract

Grants and funding