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First Fundamentally New Lubricant in Decades

posted by Woods on Friday May 23 2014, @02:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the unfathomable-levels-of-slipperiness dept.

AnonTechie writes:

The world uses tens of millions of tons of lubricant every year, from the smallest part of a micro-precision instrument to the expansion rollers on the largest bridges. Most are oil based, though others use powders, and even metals, and it's been that way for decades.

That could be changing as the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials (IWM), Nematel GmbH, and Dr. Tillwich GmbH have developed a new class of lubricants that are based on liquid crystals instead of oil. According to Fraunhofer, this is the first fundamentally new lubricant developed in twenty years. Liquid crystals are an oddity of the chemical world that most people know from digital displays and television sets, but are actually found in everything from cell membranes to soapy water. As the name implies, a liquid crystal is a substance that is neither entirely a liquid, nor a crystal, but possesses the properties of both, such as a liquid that retains the structure of a solid crystal.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 23 2014, @02:54PM

    by c0lo (156) on Friday May 23 2014, @02:54PM (#46763) Journal

    Organic Superlube? Oh, it's great stuff, great stuff. You really have to keep an eye on it, though - it'll try and slide away from you the first chance it gets.
    T. M. Morgan-Reilly, Morgan Metagenics

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 23 2014, @03:29PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday May 23 2014, @03:29PM (#46774)

    I know liquid crystals well!
    So, if you drop the container, does the stain look like a spider web?

  • (Score: 1) by DECbot on Friday May 23 2014, @07:31PM

    by DECbot (832) on Friday May 23 2014, @07:31PM (#46874) Journal

    Drone Riot!

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