LAUSR

Friction and wear are common physical phenomena in nature, while lubrication is an effective way to decrease unnecessary friction and wear. With the rapid development of environmental protection consciousness, designing novel lubricants or lubricating additives with excellent lubricating performance and little pollution is the increasing demand of the green tribology. In this work, nanoscale coral-like molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) was prepared via a hydrothermal method. It was first used as a lubricating additive for liquid paraffin (LP), and then, it acted as a catalyst for the photoinduced degradation of waste LP after testing. Many influencing factors (modification, concentration, morphology and temperature) that can influence the tribological properties and photocatalytic degradation level were investigated. Experimental results and related analyses indicate that modification by cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and a proper synthesis temperature are helpful to decrease the fiction coefficient, and organic modification, bigger surface area, narrower bandgap and more rim sites with oxidation activity are advantageous to achieve better LP degradation levels. Therefore, coral-like MoS2 can serve as both lubricating additive and photocatalyst at different working stages in the full life cycle of LP, which exhibits great potential in developing environment-friendly lubricating systems.