Tribological behaviors of three novel imidazoline-type thiadiazole derivatives as multifunctional lubricant additives in biodegradable lithium grease

Abstract

Three novel imidazoline-type thiadiazole derivatives are prepared and used as antiwear and extreme-pressure additives in biodegradable lithium grease, and their tribological performances are evaluated using a four-ball tester. Tribological tests show that all derivatives are effective in reducing wear, especially at lower additive concentrations. Oleic acid-imidazoline-type thiadiazole derivative is a preferred additive to reduce wear. For the friction-reducing property of base grease, improvements after using these derivatives are not remarkable. On the other hand, these derivatives are also effective extreme-pressure additives. In order to understand the friction process further, chemical composition of tribofilms under antiwear/extreme-pressure regime is analyzed by X-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy, and thermal films are also considered for comparison. Thermal films formed by these imidazoline-type thiadiazole derivatives consist of adsorbed organic sulfide and ferrous sulfide. Sulfur presents several chemical valences in the antiwear regime, and tribofilms generated by stearic acid and lauric acid-imidazoline-type thiadiazole derivatives at 1.0 wt% are composed of ferrous disulfide, ferrous sulfide and ferrous sulfate. The appearance of disulfide suggests that the interfacial temperature between the upper ball and three lower balls under antiwear conditions is considerably low. Composition of extreme-pressure films generated by oleic acid and lauric acid-imidazoline-type thiadiazole derivatives is only ferrous sulfide, and the extreme-pressure film for stearic acid imidazoline-type thiadiazole derivative is a mixture of ferrous sulfide, ferrous sulfate, and adsorbed organic sulfide.