A tribological study of DIPE esters containing ionic liquids as high temperature and heavy load lubricants

Abstract The novel DIPE esters containing ILs can be obtained by stirring DIPE esters with LiTFSI in different molar ratios. It can be seen from the tribological results that these ILs in DIPE esters showed more excellent friction-reduction and AW performance under high temperature and heavy load. A statistical regression using variance analysis was developed to examine the determining factor of anti-wear performance. Among all the experimental parameters, temperature and load were the main parameters affecting wear loss. Based on the observation of worn surfaces by SEM and XPS, the formation of the physical adsorption films of ILs in DIPE and the boundary tribochemical films were believed to be responsible for the excellent tribological performances at elevated temperature.