Tribological properties of novel imidazolium ionic liquids bearing benzotriazole group as the antiwear/anticorrosion additive in poly(ethylene glycol) and polyurea grease for steel/steel contacts

The imidazolium ionic liquids (ILs) bearing benzotriazole group were synthesized and evaluated as antiwear (AW) and anticorrosion additive in poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and polyurea grease for steel/steel contacts at room temperature and 150 °C. The physical properties of the synthetic ILs and PEG with the additive were measured. The anticorrosion property of the synthetic ILs was assessed via the accelerated corrosion test and copper strip corrosion test, which reveals the excellent anticorrosion properties in comparison with pure PEG and the selected conventional ILs having no benzotriazole group. Tribological results indicated that these ILs as the additives could effectively reduce friction and wear of sliding pairs in PEG and also in polyurea grease. The tribological properties were generally better than the normally used zincdialkyldithiophosphate-based additive package (T204) in polyurea grease. The wear mechanisms are tentatively discussed according to the morphology observation of worn surfaces of steel discs by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the surface composition analysis by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).