Bioinspired magnetically navigated coatings achieving superlubricity and anti-corrosion

Conventional protective coatings and superlubrication technologies are often constrained by harsh environments, limited operating windows, and poor lubricant compatibility, making long-term reliability under complex service conditions difficult to achieve. Inspired by the multiscale textured structure of snake scales, this study proposes a morphology-coordinated magnetic guidance strategy to fabricate a biomimetic protective coating with a highly ordered three-dimensional network. Spherical Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles were anchored onto graphene nanosheets, while ionic liquids intercalated between graphene layers formed coordination bonds with Fe ions, enabling strong interfacial coupling among the three components. Under an external magnetic field, the magnetized graphene was directionally aligned within an epoxy resin matrix. Tribological results show that the resulting DMGr-ILs-EP coating exhibits excellent self-lubricating behavior with a low coefficient of friction (COF) of 0.079, and achieves a superlubrication state under oil lubrication with an ultralow COF of 0.0016. Moreover, metal cations released from Fe 3 O 4 promote the formation of a protective passivation layer, while the aligned graphene structure significantly extends the diffusion pathways of corrosive species. Consequently, the coating maintains high corrosion resistance after 300 h of neutral salt spray exposure. This morphology-synergistic design provides a promising strategy for integrated wear- and corrosion-resistant coatings in harsh service environments.