Study of the effect of tribo-materials and surface finish on the lubricant performance of new halogen-free room temperature ionic liquids

The present work evaluates different materials and surface finish in the presence of newly designed, hydrophobic halogen-free room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) as lubricants. A reciprocating tribotester was employed with steel-ceramic and steel-thermosetting epoxy resin contacts under boundary lubrication conditions. Four different tetraalkylphosphonium organosilanesulfonate RTILs provided excellent lubricating performance, with friction coefficients as low as 0.057, and non-measurable wear for the higher roughness machine-finish stainless steel flat against sapphire balls, in the case of the lubricants containing the 2-trimethylsilylethanesulfonate anion. Higher friction coefficients of the order of 0.1 and wear volumes of the order of 10(-4) mm(3) were observed for the lower roughness fine-finished flat stainless steel surface. All RTILs prevent wear of epoxy resin against stainless steel balls, with friction coefficients in the range of 0.03-0.06. EDX analysis shows the presence of RTILs on the stainless steel surfaces after the tribological tests. Under the experimental conditions, no corrosive processes were observed. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.