Graphene Enhances the Loading Capacity and Lubrication Performance of Ionic Liquids: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Ionic liquid (IL) combined with graphene additives have garnered extensive attention in the field of high-performance lubricating materials. However, the ambiguous mechanism of graphene influencing the load-carrying and anti-wear capacity of ILs needs further study. In this work, friction simulation...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Haodong Jiang, Yaoze Wang, Zhipeng Xiong, Runhua Zhou, Linyan Yang, Lichun Bai
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-07-01
Series:Materials
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/16/14/4942
Description
Summary:Ionic liquid (IL) combined with graphene additives have garnered extensive attention in the field of high-performance lubricating materials. However, the ambiguous mechanism of graphene influencing the load-carrying and anti-wear capacity of ILs needs further study. In this work, friction simulation shows that adding graphene causes friction coefficient to reduce by up to 88% compared with pure ILs, but lubrication performance is lost due to the destruction of graphene under high stress. Meanwhile, multilayer graphene has better friction-reducing performance and friction durability as compared to the monolayer structure, which is attributed to the easy-shear property and the reduction in the percentage of high tensile stress sites in multilayer graphene structure. In addition, it was found that excessively thick ILs film would form a three-body abrasive wear structure with graphene, which accelerated the structural destruction of graphene and caused a decline in its tribological properties. It is believed these findings can be valuable for designing of high-performance lubricating oil for practical engineering.
ISSN:1996-1944