title: Supramolecular ionogel lubricants with imidazolium-based ionic liquids bearing the urea group as gelator.
abstract: A new class of ionic liquid gels (ionogels) is prepared through the supramolecular self-assembly of imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs) bearing the urea group as gelators in normal ILs. The ILs gelator can self-assemble through hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interaction to form analogous lamellar structures and solidify base ILs. The obtained ionogels exhibit superior anticorrosion and conductivity characteristics. Moreover, ionogels show fully thermoreversible and favorable thixotropic characteristics, such that they can be used as high-performance semisolid conductive lubricants. The tribological tests reveal that these ionogels lubricants can effectively reduce the friction of sliding pairs effectively and have better tribological performance than the pure ILs under harsh conditions. Ionogel lubricants not only maintain the excellent tribological properties and conductivity of ILs, but also prevent base liquids from creeping and leakage. Therefore, ionogel lubricants can be potentially used in the conductive parts of electrical equipments.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors.forename: Qiangliang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors.forename: DongMei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China. Electronic address: caimr@licp.cas.cn.
authors.forename: Meirong
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China. Electronic address: zhouf@licp.cas.cn.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.
authors.forename: Weimin
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
keywords: Anti-corrosion; Anti-wear; Friction reduction; Supramolecular ionogel; Thixotropic lubricant