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

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 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 tribo-tester 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 mm3 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.