Abstract
Macroscale superlubricity has attracted increasing attention owing to its high significance in engineering and economics. We report the superlubricity of engineering materials by the addition of partially oxidized black phosphorus (oBP) in an oleic acid (OA) oil environment. The phosphorus oxides produced by active oxidation exhibit lower friction and quick deposition performance compared to BP particles. The H-bond (-COOH⋯O-P, or -COOH⋯O=P) formed between P-O bond (or P=O) and OA molecule could benefit the lubricating state and decrease the possibility of direct contact between rough peaks. The analysis of the worn surface indicates that a three-layer tribofilm consisting of amorphous carbon, BP crystal, and phosphorus oxide forms during the friction, which replaces the shear interface from the steel/steel to carbon—oBP/carbon—oBP layer and enables macroscale superlubricity.
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Acknowlegements
This work was supported by the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. JQ21008), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52275197), and the Tsinghua-Foshan Innovation Special Fund (TFISF) (Grant No. 2020THFS0127).
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The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. The author Guoxin XIE is the Editorial Board Member of this journal and the author Jianbin LUO is the Editor-in-Chief of this journal.
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Kai GAO. He received his bachelor and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijng, China, in 2015 and 2020, respectively. From 2021, he has been working at State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Tsinghua University, China for postdoctoral research. His major research areas include the preparation and tribology of silicate based high-temperature coatings, and the macroscale superlubricity achieved by 2D materials and carbon-based films.
Guoxin XIE. He received his Ph.D. degree at Tsinghua University, China, in 2010, majoring in mechanical engineering. After that, he spent two years at State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Tsinghua University, China for postdoctoral research. From 2012 to 2014, he worked at Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, for another two years’ post-doctoral research. Since 2014, he has worked at Tsinghua University as an associate professor. His research interests include intelligent self-lubrication, electric contact lubrication, etc. He has published more than 50 referred papers in international journals. He won several important academic awards, such as Chinese Thousands of Young Talents, the Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award of China, and Ragnar Holm Plaque from KTH, Sweden.
Jianbin LUO. He received his BEng degree from Northeastern University in 1982, and got his MEng degree from Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology in 1988. In 1994, he received his Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University and then joined the faculty of Tsinghua University. Prof. Jianbin Luo is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a Yangtze River Scholar Distinguished Professor of Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He was awarded the STLE International Award (2013), the Chinese National Technology Progress Prize (2008), the Chinese National Natural Science Prize (2001), and the Chinese National Invention Prize (1996). Prof. Luo has been engaged in the research of thin film lubrication and tribology in nanomanufacturing. He was invited as a keynote or plenary speaker for 20 times on the international conferences.
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Gao, K., Jiao, J., Wang, Z. et al. Superlubricity induced by partially oxidized black phosphorus on engineering steel. Friction 11, 1592–1605 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-022-0628-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-022-0628-3