Lubrication mechanisms of hollow-core inorganic fullerene-like nanoparticles: coupling experimental and computational works

I Lahouij, E W Bucholz, B Vacher, S B Sinnott, J M Martin and F Dassenoy



Inorganic fullerene-like (IF) nanoparticles made of metal dichalcogenides have previously been recognized to be good friction modifiers and anti-wear additives under boundary lubrication conditions. The tribological performance of these particles appears to be a result of their size, structure and morphology, along with the test conditions. However, the very small scale of the IF nanoparticles makes distinguishing the properties which affect the lubrication mechanism exceedingly difficult. In this work, a high resolution transmission electron microscope equipped with a nanoindentation holder is used to manipulate individual hollow IF-WS 2 nanoparticles and to investigate their responses to compression. Additional atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of similarly structured, individual hollow IF-MoS 2 nanoparticles are performed for compression studies between molybdenum surfaces on their major and minor axis diameters. MD simulations of these s...



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