Collaborative Research: Understanding the Lubrication Mechanisms of Environmentally-Compatible Protic Ionic Liquids

合作研究：了解环境相容的质子离子液体的润滑机制

• 批准号: 2246864
• 负责人: Patricia Iglesias
• 金额: $ 27.6万
• 依托单位: Rochester Institute of Tech
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-01 至 2026-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2246864&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Understanding; Lubrication; Mechanisms

There is growing demand for engineering systems and functional materials with improved energy efficiency and longer lifetime through improved friction, wear, and lubrication performance, also known as tribological performance. This demand is driven by economic and societal needs such as minimizing greenhouse gas emissions, ensuring energy security, and improving industrial output and competitiveness. Ionic liquids (ILs) are molten salts with tunable composition and melting points below 100ºC. Their physical and chemical properties make them promising lubricating fluids. However, the high cost and corrosiveness of common ILs combined with a poor understanding of the relationship between IL molecular structure and lubrication performance has limited large-scale utilization of ILs in tribological applications. A class of low-cost, eco-friendly, non-corrosive protic ionic liquids (PILs) called choline amino acid PILs has emerged as a possible alternative to these common ILs. This project seeks to understand how PIL molecular structures affect their arrangement and reaction at solid sliding interfaces. The project will also leverage the complementary expertise and resources of the principal investigators at the University of Texas-Austin (UT-Austin) and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) to enhance the quality, size, and diversity of the US engineering workforce through training and education opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds and underrepresented groups in STEM.The research project will identify links between the molecular structure of choline amino acid PILs – a class of halogen-free, eco-friendly PILs – and their functional performance (i.e., nanoscale and macroscale lubricating behavior). The research will also examine how the functional behavior emerges from the interfacial processes occurring at solid/PILs interfaces in response to spatial confinement and applied normal pressure and shear forces. The working hypothesis is that multiple interfacial processes, including surface adsorption, interfacial phase transformation, and shear-induced mechano-chemical reaction, underpin the promising lubricating properties of choline amino acid PILs; in addition, the kinetics of these processes can be controlled by tailoring the molecular structure of the ions (e.g., length of the alkyl chains). The team’s complementary expertise and instrumentation will be applied to synthesize PILs with systematically-varied structures. These PILs will be employed in nanoscale and macroscale tribological experiments to test the working hypothesis. The project outcomes will inform the design of novel ILs with improved and task-specific tribological properties.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

人们对工程系统和功能材料的需求日益增长，这些材料通过改善摩擦、磨损和润滑性能（也称为摩擦学性能）来提高能效和延长寿命。这一需求是由经济和社会需求驱动的，如最大限度地减少温室气体排放，确保能源安全，提高工业产出和竞争力。离子液体（IL）是具有可调组成和低于100ºC的熔点的熔融盐。它们的物理和化学性质使它们成为有前途的润滑流体。然而，普通离子液体的高成本和腐蚀性，以及对离子液体分子结构与润滑性能之间关系的认识不足，限制了离子液体在摩擦学应用中的大规模利用。一类低成本、环境友好、无腐蚀性的质子离子液体（PILs），称为胆碱氨基酸PILs，已成为这些常见离子液体的可能替代品。该项目旨在了解PIL分子结构如何影响其在固体滑动界面上的排列和反应。该项目还将利用得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校主要调查人员的补充专门知识和资源（UT奥斯汀）和罗切斯特理工学院（RIT），以提高质量，规模，通过为来自不同背景和STEM代表性不足的群体的本科生和研究生提供培训和教育机会，促进美国工程劳动力的多样性。该研究项目将确定胆碱氨基酸PIL--一类无卤素、生态友好的PIL--的分子结构及其功能性能（即，纳米尺度和宏观尺度润滑行为）。该研究还将研究如何从固体/PIL界面处发生的界面过程中出现的功能行为，以响应空间限制和施加的法向压力和剪切力。工作假设是多个界面过程，包括表面吸附、界面相变和剪切诱导的机械化学反应，支持胆碱氨基酸PIL的有前途的润滑性能;此外，这些过程的动力学可以通过定制离子的分子结构（例如，烷基链的长度）。该团队的互补专业知识和仪器将被应用于合成具有系统多样结构的PIL。这些PIL将被用于纳米尺度和宏观尺度的摩擦学实验，以测试工作假设。该项目的成果将为新型离子液体的设计提供信息，这些离子液体具有改进的和特定任务的摩擦学特性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。