“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.
Researchers demonstrated a novel principle for broadening the structural superlubricating state based on numberless micro‐contact into macroscale superlubricity. 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.”
This work was recently published in Advanced Materials. Doctoral student LI Panpan at University of Chinese Academy of Sciences is the first author, Prof. JI Li, Prof. LI Hongxuan and Prof. CHEN Jianmin at Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences are the corresponding authors.
