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The issues regarding energy dissipation and component damage caused by the interface friction between a friction pair attract enormous attention to friction reduction. The key-enabling technique to realize friction reduction is the use of lubricants. The lubricants smooth the contact interfaces, achieving an ultralow friction contact, which is called superslippery or superlubricity. At present, superslippery and superlubricity are two isolated research topics. There is a lack of unified definition on superslippery and superlubricity from the viewpoint of tribology. Herein, this review aims at exploring the differences and relations between superslippery and superlubricity from their origin and application scenarios. Meanwhile, the challenges for developing superslippery surface and superlubricity surface are discussed. In addition, perspectives on the interactive development of these two surfaces are presented. We hope that our discussion can provide guidance for designing superslippery or superlubricity surfaces by using varies drag-reduction technologies.


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Low friction of superslippery and superlubricity: A review

Show Author's information Zijian ZHENG1Zhiguang GUO1,2( )Weimin LIU2( )Jianbin LUO3( )
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for the Green Preparation and Application of Functional Materials, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China
State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Abstract

The issues regarding energy dissipation and component damage caused by the interface friction between a friction pair attract enormous attention to friction reduction. The key-enabling technique to realize friction reduction is the use of lubricants. The lubricants smooth the contact interfaces, achieving an ultralow friction contact, which is called superslippery or superlubricity. At present, superslippery and superlubricity are two isolated research topics. There is a lack of unified definition on superslippery and superlubricity from the viewpoint of tribology. Herein, this review aims at exploring the differences and relations between superslippery and superlubricity from their origin and application scenarios. Meanwhile, the challenges for developing superslippery surface and superlubricity surface are discussed. In addition, perspectives on the interactive development of these two surfaces are presented. We hope that our discussion can provide guidance for designing superslippery or superlubricity surfaces by using varies drag-reduction technologies.

Keywords: superlubricity, tribology, low friction, lubricants, superslippery

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Publication history

Received: 22 January 2022
Revised: 15 March 2022
Accepted: 25 May 2022
Published: 10 August 2022
Issue date: July 2023

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© The author(s) 2022.

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51735013).

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