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This paper aims to determine a suitable anti-wear and friction-reducing compounding additive for lithium greases (LG) by investigating the effects of three single additives potassium borate (PB), zinc dialkyl dithiophosphate and molybdenum dialkyl dithiophosphate (MoDDP) and two compound additives on the friction, wear and extreme pressure properties of LG.

The effects of the above five additives on the friction, wear and extreme pressure properties of LG were investigated using an SRV-5 friction tester. An X-ray photoelectron spectrometer was used to analyze the various elements presented on the wear surface as well as the types of compounds.

The compound additive suitable for grease consists of PB and MoDDP, which have excellent friction reduction, anti-wear and extreme pressure properties. And a boundary protection film consisting of oxide and MoS₂ is formed on the friction surface, thus improving the friction reduction and anti-wear performance of the grease.

This study can improve the anti-wear and friction-reduction performance of greases, which is of great importance in the field of industrial lubrication. The results of this paper are expected to be useful to researchers and academics of grease.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-11-2022-0350/

Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) has an excellent performance and application value; however, as a tribological material, its main drawback is its poor performance under dry friction, impacting its ability to work in high-speed dry friction conditions. Modification of UHMWPE can be carried out to overcome these issues. A significant number of inorganic materials have been used to modify UHMWPE and provide it with good tribological performance. However, thus far, there has been no systematic investigation into the methodology of modifying UHMWPE. The authors take a quantitative approach to determine the structure tribo-ability relationship and basic principles of screening of inorganic compounds suited to modify UHMWPE.

The tribological properties of modified UHMWPE using a series of inorganic additives have been qualitatively studied by the authors’ research group previously. In this study, basic quantitative structure tribo-ability relationships (QSTRs) of inorganic additives for modifying UHMWPE were studied to predict tribological properties. A set of 15 inorganic compounds and their tribological data were used to study the predictive capability of QSTR towards inorganic additives properties.

The results show that the anti-wear and friction-reducing properties of these inorganic compounds correlate with the calculated parameters of entropy and dipole moment. Increased entropy and smaller dipole moment can effectively improve the anti-wear and friction-reducing ability of inorganic compounds as UHMWPE additives. Additives with larger molecular weight, lower hardness and lower melting and boiling points provide good tribological properties for UHMWPE. For inorganic compounds to act as UHMWPE additives, the chemical bond should be less covalent and have more ionic character.

Only 15 inorganic compounds and their tribological data were used to study the predictive capability of QSTR towards inorganic additives properties. If the samples number is more than 30, the other QSTR methodology can be used to study the modified UHMWPE, and the models finding can be more precise.

A QSTR model for modified UHMWPE has been studied systematically. While the results are not more precise and detailed, the model provides a new way to explore the modified UHMWPE characteristics and to reveal new insight into the friction and wear process.

Because the method of studying tribological materials is entirely different from others, the authors want to present the works and discuss it with colleagues.

The paper presents a new method to study the modified UHMWPE. A QSTR is used to study the tribology capability of compounds from calculated structure descriptors. This study uses the Hartree–Fock ab initio method to establish a QSTR prediction model to estimate the ability of 15 inorganic compounds to act as anti-wear and friction-reducing additives for UHMWPE.

The purpose of this study is to reduce the use of Zinc dialkyl dithiophosphates (ZDDP) and improve the frictional properties and thermal oxidation stability of Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) grease by adding antioxidant additives. The addition of antioxidants can reduce the consumption of ZDDP as an antioxidant, thus improving the anti-wear efficiency of ZDDP and reducing the excess phosphorus element in the grease.

In this study, an antioxidant with good comprehensive performance was selected from several antioxidants by tribological tests and high-temperature tests. Then, the effect of its combination additive with ZDDP on PFPE grease was investigated. The anti-wear property, anti-friction property, thermal oxidation stability and extreme pressure property of greases containing different proportions of ZDDP and antioxidant were tested by four-ball tester and synchronous thermal analyzer (STA). The effects of additives on properties of grease were analyzed by SEM, EDS, LSCM, XPS and FT-IR.

The research shows that 2,6-Di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol (BHT) can be used as an antioxidant in combined additives to reduce the antioxidant reactions of ZDDP, thus improving the anti-wear efficiency of ZDDP and further enhancing the anti-wear performance of the grease. Moreover, BHT and ZDDP have a synergistic effect on the high temperature performance of the PFPE grease due to their different antioxidant mechanisms.

In this paper, the problems related to PFPE grease are studied, which has a certain guiding effect on the industrial application of fluorine grease and the related formulation design.

In this paper, the properties of PFPE grease under different lubricating condition were studied. The synergistic lubrication effect of antioxidant and ZDDP are discussed. It provides experimental and theoretical support for reducing the content of ZDDP and improving the performance of additives.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the tribological properties of beef tallow grease and improvements therein through modification with special processing, polymeric compounds and additives.

Pure original beef tallow grease was used as a biological lubricating grease reference material for the tribological research. Beef tallow was modified and synthesized by adding special biological anti-oxidant additives, LZ anti-wear additives, waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) polymer compounds and thermally processed graphite.

Rheometric measurements indicate that the beef tallow grease modification technology used in this study enables control of the synthesis process to produce lubricants with the required microstructure. Investigation results of the tribological properties of differently modified greases show that beef tallow synthesized with polymer additives efficiently operates together with anti-wear additives to reduce friction and wear. The grease compound with thermally processed graphite has good tribological properties at 300 N load levels. The critical load level of lubricating greases could be significantly increased through the use of anti-wear additives and thermally processed graphite.

Investigation results of the tribological properties of differently modified beef tallow greases show that beef tallow synthesized with polymer additives efficiently operates together with anti-wear additives to reduce friction and wear. The critical load level of lubricating beef tallow greases could be significantly increased using anti-wear additives and thermally processed graphite.

Through practical tests, it has been found that steel balls based on different standards could affect tribological performances of the same lubricant, but unfortunately, past researches in the field have been quite inadequate. The aim of this paper, therefore, is conscientiously to study the problem.

The anti‐wear properties of four kinds of lubricants were evaluated by four‐ball tester using two kinds of steel balls based on different standards. The reason for different anti‐wear properties of the same lubricant was also discussed using hardness tester and scanning electron microscope with an energy dispersive spectrometer (SEM/EDS).

It was found that steel balls based on different standards could affect the tribological results for the same lubricant. The reason could lie in the surface chemical composition, surface roughness and hardness of steel balls which originated from the subtle difference of different standards.

The paper shows that, as far as evaluating anti‐wear properties is concerned, steel ball based on AISI Standard Steel No. E‐52100 is a better choice than that based on Chinese standard GB 308.

This paper seeks to study the tribological properties, corrosion inhibition properties and action mechanism of two triazine‐containing disulfides, TOSS and TOMA, as additives in combustion engine base oil (5CST); those properties of an alkyl disulfide dodecyl disulfide and zinc dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP) were also evaluated for comparison to discover whether these additives could be used as potential substitute candidates for ZDDP.

Their tribological performances were evaluated using a four‐ball machine. The worn surfaces were investigated by scanning electron microscopy and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)

The three additives have good load‐carrying capacity and corrosion inhibition properties comparable with those of ZDDP. The anti‐wear properties of the triazine‐containing disulfides TOSS and TOMA are good but a little inferior to those of ZDDP. The friction‐reducing performances of the additives are better than those of ZDDP. The XPS results show that absorption and tribochemical reactions occur to generate a complex boundary lubrication films comprising inorganic sulfate, sulfide, iron oxide and organic nitrogen, and sulfur‐containing compounds.

The anti‐oxidation properties are still to be estimated, and the synergistic effectiveness with other additives could be demonstrated.

These additives are good extreme pressure and anti‐wear additives in combustion engine base oil and, through further modification of molecular structure or combination with other additives, they may be a potential replacement for ZDDP.

To reduce the cost, the products synthesized were not finely separated. Their tribological properties as additives in the widely used combustion engine base oil were first investigated and results indicate that they show excellent performances.

Thiadiazole compounds and their derivatives have carrying capacity and good lubricating properties. However, their poor oil-solubility limited their wide usage in lubricating oil. The study aims to develop thiadiazole lubricant additives with better oil-solubility. When the hindered phenol antioxidation functional group and alkyl-chain are introduced to thiadiazole, the resulting product could have better oil-solubility and excellent antioxidation resistance, anti-wear and corrosion resistance in the lubricating oil.

One kind of thiadiazole lubricant additive, for the first time, has been synthesized from 2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole. Its tribological performance has also been evaluated by four-ball test. And, its oxidation resistance has been estimated by rotating pressure vessel oxidation test and pressurized differential scanning calorimetry. The anticorrosion performance of such an additive has been studied by GB/T 5096 standard method test.

The synthesized thiadiazole additive has excellent anti-oxidation capability, good anti-wear and extreme pressure properties and good anticorrosion performance, in comparison with zinc dialkyl dithiophosphate (ZDDP). In base oils, the comprehensive performance of thiadiazole additive is comparable to ZDDP. Mechanistic studies indicate that the S and N active elements were involved in the formation of a boundary film. This may account for the formation of a composite membrane on the metal surface and thus for the tribological performance of such thiadiazole additives.

The thiadiazole derivatives, which are ashless and have environmentally friendly features, are a potential alternative to ZDDP. Because of the film formed on the friction surface, thiadiazole compounds may serve as an excellent anti-wear additive and are expected to reduce friction and wear between metals.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the tribological behaviour of commercially available SAE 10 mineral and rapeseed oils containing Fe particles synthesized directly in the oil phase.

Sub-micron Fe particles (50-340 nm) were synthesized by wet chemical reduction reaction of FeSO₄ by sodium borohydride in the rapeseed and mineral oils in the presence of surfactant: block copolymer (ENB 90R4) or oxyethylated alcohol (OS-20). A four-ball wear tribometer was used to investigate the tribological properties of mineral and rapeseed oil: coefficient of friction (COF), wear scar diameter and wear loss. Viscosity measurements of oil solutions and determination of synthesized Fe particles size were performed as well.

The presence of Fe particles (0.1 weight per cent) in the rapeseed and mineral oils caused the little change in the COF but resulted in marked improvement of anti-wear property. The oils containing Fe particles with slightly higher viscosity are giving more friction due to viscous drag. The anti-wear enhancement is attributed to the formation of tribofilm and superior load-bearing capability of the modified oil. Both rapeseed and mineral oils irrespective of used surfactant in the presence of 0.1 weight per cent Fe particles (50-140 nm) show sufficiently improved anti-wear properties.

The data collection about tribological behaviour of oils containing Fe particles and various additives in lubricants has a practical interest. The findings could be helpful to increase the knowledge of the behaviour of real tribological systems, where the metallic debris are generated during friction and contaminate the lubricating oil.

Nanoparticles as the grease additives play an important role in anti-wear and friction-reducing property during the mechanical operation. To improve the lubrication action of grease, the tribological behavior of lithium-based greases with single (nanometer Al₂O₃ or nanometer ZnO) and composite additives (Al₂O₃–ZnO nanoparticles) were investigated in this paper.

The morphology and microstructure of nanoparticles were characterized by means of transmission electron microscope and X-ray diffraction. Tribological properties of different nanoparticles as additives in lithium-based greases were evaluated using a universal friction and wear testing machine. In addition, the friction coefficient (COF) and wear scar diameter were analyzed. The surface morphology and element overlay of the worn steel surface were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), respectively.

The results show that the greases with nanometer Al₂O₃ or nanometer ZnO and the composite nanoparticles additives both exhibit lower COFs and wear scar diameters than those of base grease. And the grease with Al₂O₃–ZnO composite nanoparticles possesses much lower COF and shows much better wear resistance than greases with single additives. When the additives contents are 0.4 Wt.% Al₂O₃ and 0.6 Wt.% ZnO, the composite nanoparticles-based grease exhibits the lowest mean COF (0.04) and wear scar diameter (0.65 mm), which is about 160% and 28% lower than those of base grease, respectively.

The main innovative thought of this work lies in dealing with the grease using single or composite nanoparticles. And through a serial contrast experiments, the anti-wear and friction-reducing property with different nanoparticles additives in lithium grease are evaluated.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the tribological behavior of the synthetic chlorine‐ and fluorine‐containing silicon oil as an aerospace lubricant.

The chlorinated‐phenyl and methyl terminated silicone oil (CPSO), chlorinated‐phenyl and trifluorinated‐propyl with methyl terminated silicone oil (FCPSO) were prepared. Their physical properties such as saturated vapor pressure and the evaporation weight loss were evaluated. The tribological properties of the silicon oils under moderate load were investigated with an Optimol SRV oscillating friction and wear tester, as well as Four‐ball friction and wear tester according to the standard method of ASTM D 4172 under higher load. The elemental composition generated on steel ball surface were analyzed on a scanning electron microscope with a Kevex energy dispersive X‐ray analyzer attachment (SEM/EDS), and the chemical nature of elements on worn surface lubricated with FCPSO were studied by X‐ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS).

It is found that the CPSO and FCPSO show good tribological behavior for steel/CuSn alloy tribological pairs and are superior to hosphazene (X‐1P) and perfluoropolyether in terms of friction‐reduction ability and anti‐wear performance. The anti‐wear performance of FCPSO as lubricants for steel‐steel contacts is superior to CPSO. The EDS results showed existence of F and Si on the worn surface with lubrication of FCPSO, while XPS results indicated the occurrence of tribochemical reaction of FCPSO with friction pair during sliding process with the formation of FeCl₂, FeF₂ and the absorption silicon oil films on the lubricated metal surface.

The results substantiate that chemical reactive elemental such as chlorine or fluorine, which is substituted into silicon oil, helps to improve the anti‐wear and load‐carrying capacity of the liquid lubricant. So the excellent thermal stability, low‐temperature fluidity, very low‐saturated vapor pressure and excellent lubricity for steel/CuSn alloy of the silicon oil of FCPSO and CPSO make it an attractive alternative to conventional liquid lubricant for space mechanism.