Tribological performance of ionic liquid impregnated porous aluminum borate ceramic

To achieve superior tribological performance without continuous lubricant supply, a novel ceramic - phosphonium based ionic liquids (P-ILs) system is developed via vacuum impregnation. The P-ILs with different viscosity and density impregnated in ceramic pellets were tested at different temperatures and sliding velocities. The results suggest that at a low temperature of 5 °C, the phosphonium benzoate and phosphonium salicylate IL exhibited a low coefficient of friction (COF) than the phosphonium saccharinate IL under a sliding velocity of 100 mm/s. Whereas this trend reversed at a higher temperature of 50 and 100 °C. Similar observations were also made for the wear rate of this unique system. It was found that the tribological performance of the P-IL+ceramic system depends on the thermal response of these ILs which is further correlated with the density and viscosity of P-ILs that control the supply of lubricants at the sliding interface.