Abstract
Solid lubricants fill a special niche in reducing wear in situations where the use of liquid lubricants is either impractical or inadequate, such as in vacuum, space technology or automotive transport. Metal dichalcogenides MX2 (where M is, for instance, Mo or W and X is S or Se) are widely used as solid lubricants. These materials are characterized by a layered structure with weak (van der Waals) inter-layer forces that allow easy, low-strength shearing1,2. Within the past few years, hollow nanoparticles (HNs) of MX2 with structures similar to those of nested carbon fullerenes and nanotubes have been synthesized3,4. Here we show that these materials can act as effective solid lubricants: HN-WS2 outperforms the solid lubricants 2H-MoS2 and 2H-WS2 in every respect (friction, wear and lifetime of the lubricant) under varied test conditions. We attribute the outstanding performance of HN-WS2 to its chemical inertness and the hollow cage structure, which imparts elasticity and allows the particles to roll rather than to slide.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Singer, I. L. in Fundamentals of Friction: Macroscopic and Microscopic Processes(eds Singer, I. L. & Pollock, H. M.) 237 (Kluwer, Dordrecht, (1992)).
Bowden, F. P. & Tabor, D. Friction: An Introduction to Tribology 91 (Anchor, Garden City, New York, (1973)).
Tenne, R., Margulis, L., Genut, M. & Hodes, G. Polyhedral and cylindrical structures of tungsten disulphide. Nature 360, 444–445 (1992).
Feldman, Y., Wasserman, E., Srolovitz, D. J. & Tenne, R. High-rate, gas-phase growth of MoS2nested inorganic fullerenes and nanotubes. Science 267, 222–225 (1995).
Feldman, Y. et al. Bulk synthesis of inorganic fullerene-like MS2(M=Mo, W) from the respective trioxide and the reaction mechanism. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 118, 5362–5367 (1966).
Standard G77in ASTM Book of Standards Vol. 3.02, Wear and Erosion: Metal Corrosion 303–314 (Am. Soc. for Testing and Materials, West Conshohocken, PA, (1993)).
Seitzman, L. E., Bolster, R. N., Singer, I. L. & Wegand, J. C. Relationship of endurance to microstructure of MoS2coatings. Tribology Trans. 38, 445–451 (1995).
Moser, J. & Lévy, F. MoS2−xlubricating films: structure and wear mechanisms investigated by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. Thin Solid Films 228, 257–260 (1993).
Srolovitz, D. J., Safran, S. A., Homyonfer, M. & Tenne, R. Morphology of nested fullerenes. Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 1779–1781 (1995).
Fischer, T. E. in Fundamentals of Friction: Macroscopic and Microscopic Processes(eds Singer, I. L. & Pollock, H. M.) 299 (Kluwer, Dordrecht, (1992)).
Meyer, E. et al. Site-specific friction force spectroscopy. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 14, 1285–1288 (1996).
Mamin, H. J., Ganz, E., Abraham, D. W., Thomson, R. E. & Clarke, J. Contamination-mediated deformation of graphite by the scanning tunneling microscope. Phys. Rev. B 34, 9015–9018 (1986).
Klein, J. Shear, friction, and lubrication forces between polymer-bearing surfaces. Annu. Rev. Mater. Sci. 26, 581–612 (1996).
Acknowledgements
We thank D. J. Srolovitz for discussions. This work was supported in part by the ACS-PRF; the UK-Israel Science and Technology Research Fund; the Minerva Foundation (Munich); and the Israel Ministry of Science (Strategic Program on Nanomaterials).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary material for the article (DOC 12 kb)
Supplementary Image 1
Wear track left on the steel-block in experiment a of Table 1. (JPG 146 kb)
Supplementary Image 2
Wear track left on the steel-block in the disc-block experiment. (JPG 182 kb)
Supplementary Image 3
Wear track left on LiF crystal in the reciprocating ball on flat tribometer experiment. (JPG 93 kb)
Supplementary Image 4
Topography and frictional map obtained with SFM. (JPG 41 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rapoport, L., Bilik, Y., Feldman, Y. et al. Hollow nanoparticles of WS2 as potential solid-state lubricants. Nature 387, 791–793 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/42910
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/42910
This article is cited by
-
Tribological properties of Al-GNP composites at elevated temperature
Friction (2024)
-
Physical Properties of B12C4N8 Under the External Electric Field
Journal of Cluster Science (2024)
-
High temperature induced “glaze” layer formed in HVOF-sprayed NiCrWMoCuCBFe coating and its wear reduction mechanism
Friction (2022)
-
Hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene using novel unsupported FeMoS catalysts prepared by in-situ activation from Fe (III)-containing thiomolybdate salts
Reaction Kinetics, Mechanisms and Catalysis (2021)
-
Study of the molybdenum dichalcogenide crystals: recent developments and novelty of the P-MoS2 structure
Journal of Molecular Modeling (2021)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.