Enhanced Poly(Ionic Liquid) Lubricants: multiscale strucure and interfacial properties – POILLU

Lubricating oils are being increasingly used across several industrial applications and the demand for these materials is on the rise and is expected to grow further in order to reduce machinery energy consumption and wear. Within this framework, the development of high performance lubricants is the key for the expansion of important industries and markets. Recently ionic liquids (ILs) have been shown to be promising candidates for novel high performances lubricants thanks to their various physico-chemical properties and their ability to lower significantly the friction between two surfaces. Such promising properties of ILs were found to be highly related to their capacity to nanostructure in bulk and at interfaces. However, the range of viscosities available in most IL classes is rather narrow compared to macromolecular lubricants. Poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs) are thus promising candidates to translate the frictional and chemical properties of both polymers and ILs to innovative and highly tuneable macromolecular lubricants. The addition of local interactions inherited from ILs to macromolecules results in a complex and rich panel of chemical and physical properties opening new opportunities to design polymeric materials with targeted functions which are highly related to both structural and dynamical properties of PILs.
The POILLU project aims to take advantage of the lubrication properties of ILs and strong slippage ability of polymer melts to develop PILs with enhanced lubrication properties. Supported by the synthesis of a new class of tailored PILs specifically designed to meet the stringent criteria and ambitious objectives of this the project, this multidisciplinary consortium will perform a detailed molecular description of the bulk and interfacial stress transmission mechanisms involved in PILs using complementary state-of-the-art experimental techniques mastered by skilled soft matter physicists. The coupling of extensive bulk rheological characterization and advanced scattering techniques (SANS, WAXS) will enable us to determine the multi-scale structure/dynamic relationship occurring in PILs. The enhanced interfacial nano-structuration of PILs and its impact on surface chains dynamics will be studied thanks to Grazing Incident X-ray Scattering and Surface Force Apparatus nano-rheological measurements. Finally, the lubrication properties of PILs will be characterized using photobleaching based velocimetry technique.
This interdisciplinary approach gathering internationally renowned skills in polymer chemistry, physical chemistry and physics that will highlight the exotic properties of PILs both in bulk and at interfaces opening appealing scientific perspectives in the field of complex polymeric materials targeting specific function through a multiscale molecular design.