Surface coating from phosphonate ionic liquid electrolyte for the enhancement of the tribological performance of magnesium alloy.

A chronoamperometric method has been applied for the growth of a surface coating on AZ31B magnesium alloy, using the imidazolium alkylphosphonate room-temperature ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ethylphosphonate ([EMIM][EtPO3H]) as electrolyte. A surface coating layer is obtained after 4 h under a constant voltage bias of -0.8 V with respect to the standard electrode.

Liquid crystals in tribology.

Two decades ago, the literature dealing with the possible applications of low molar mass liquid crystals, also called monomer liquid crystals (MLCs), only included about 50 references. Today, thousands of papers, conference reports, books or book chapters and patents refer to the study and applications of MLCs as lubricants and lubricant additives and efforts are made to develop new commercial applications. The development of more efficient lubricants is of paramount technological and economic relevance as it is estimated that half the energy consumption is dissipated as friction.