IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v387y1997i6635d10.1038_42910.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hollow nanoparticles of WS2 as potential solid-state lubricants

Author

Listed:
  • L. Rapoport

    (Center for Technological Education-Holon)

  • Yu. Bilik

    (Center for Technological Education-Holon)

  • Y. Feldman

    (Weizmann Institute)

  • M. Homyonfer

    (Weizmann Institute)

  • S. R. Cohen

    (‡Chemical Services Unit, Weizmann Institute)

  • R. Tenne

    (Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to R.T.)

Abstract

Solid lubricants fill a special niche in reducing wear in situations where the use of liquid lubricants is either impractical or inadequate, such as in vacuum, space technology or automotive transport. Metal dichalcogenides MX2 (where M is, for instance, Mo or W and X is S or Se) are widely used as solid lubricants. These materials are characterized by a layered structure with weak (van der Waals) inter-layer forces that allow easy, low-strength shearing1,2. Within the past few years, hollow nanoparticles (HNs) of MX2 with structures similar to those of nested carbon fullerenes and nanotubes have been synthesized3,4. Here we show that these materials can act as effective solid lubricants: HN-WS2 outperforms the solid lubricants 2H-MoS2 and 2H-WS2 in every respect (friction, wear and lifetime of the lubricant) under varied test conditions. We attribute the outstanding performance of HN-WS2 to its chemical inertness and the hollow cage structure, which imparts elasticity and allows the particles to roll rather than to slide.

Suggested Citation

  • L. Rapoport & Yu. Bilik & Y. Feldman & M. Homyonfer & S. R. Cohen & R. Tenne, 1997. "Hollow nanoparticles of WS2 as potential solid-state lubricants," Nature, Nature, vol. 387(6635), pages 791-793, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:387:y:1997:i:6635:d:10.1038_42910
    DOI: 10.1038/42910
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/42910
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/42910?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:387:y:1997:i:6635:d:10.1038_42910. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.