Mesoporous silica as smart lubrication containers applied to self‐lubricating polyurethane materials

Abstract Self‐lubricating composite with stimuli‐responsive properties attracts great interest in recent years. Herein, mesoporous silica (MS) as oil‐laden containers is explored to achieve self‐lubricating feature. The as‐prepared MS possesses a high Brunauer‐Emmett‐Teller (BET) surface area (1,542.35 m 2 /g), which satisfies the criterion for construction of ideal repository for storing enough liquid lubricants. In addition, the thermal stimuli‐responsiveness behavior of the oil‐laden mesoporous silica (OMS) for lubrication has been investigated by thermogravimetric analyzer tester. As expected, an excellent tribological performance (friction coefficient and wear rate decreased by 63.29 and 82.63%) is obtained by adding 10 wt% OMS into the polyurathene matrix, showing great promise for self‐lubricating application.