Brij30/[C10mim]Br/H2O lamellar liquid crystals for enhanced lubrication and conductivity properties

Conventional industrial conductive lubricants often contain various components to meet their functional requirements for long-term stabilization, lubrication, and conductivity. The complexity of these components makes their preparation, storage, and recycling difficult. To solve this problem, a simple three-component lamellar liquid crystals (LLCs) containing surfactant Brij30, H 2 O, and ionic liquid [C 10 mim]Br was designed and prepared. The results demonstrated that the Brij30/[C 10 mim]Br/H 2 O LLCs system has high stability, lubricity, and conductivity. In the friction test, compared with LLCs without ionic liquids, LLCs with 70 wt% [C 10 mim]Br content showed the best antiwear performance, reducing wear depth by 64.96 % and wear volume by 61.79 %. The lowest coefficient of friction was 0.0877 in the extended cycle test. The conductivity test illustrated the LLCs exhibited high electric conductivity in the [C 10 mim]Br concentration range of 40 wt% to 60 wt%. The addition of ionic liquid not only acts as a co-surfactant in the liquid crystal system to promote the assembly of the surfactant but also improves the lubrication performance and enhances the conductivity of the liquid crystal system. The generation of friction chemically reaction and physically adsorption films formed by LLCs at the friction interface has a synergistic effect on lubrication in the sliding friction process. The spherical wear particles generated by the friction process facilitate rolling friction to promote lubrication. In addition, LLCs can easily realize reusability by removing the wear debris generated by the friction process using the magneto-thermal method. These advantages make the LLCs a promising green, efficient conductive lubricant system.