Fabrication of functional N, S co-doped MXene for enhance tribological performance

As an emerging two-dimensional (2D) material, MXene holds significant potential for applications in tribology. In this work, we prepared N, S co-doped MXene by introducing N and S heteroatoms into MXene, followed by grafting the anti-wear molecule thiadiazole dimer (DTD) onto the N,S-MXene surface to obtain DTD functionalized N,S-MXene (DTD@N,S-MXene). The DTD@N,S-MXene additive demonstrated substantial improvements in lubrication performance, reducing the average coefficient of friction (COF) of 500SN from 0.57 to 0.108, increasing the load-bearing capacity from 100 N to 550 N, and decreasing the wear volume by 57.3 %. These enhancements are attributed to the strong adsorption DTD@N,S-MXene on the friction pair, while the doped heteroatoms facilitate tribochemical reactions that form a robust protective film, enhancing anti-wear and anti-friction performance.