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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.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheLink on Friday May 23 2014, @05:17PM
On a vaguely related note, I wonder if it would be viable to use foil bearings on slow stuff by putting bearings between the wheel and the hub and spinning the stuff in between at high speed.
For example: outer wheel - foil bearing #1 - ring - foil bearing #2 - stationary hub.
The ring is then spun at high speeds. It might not take that much power to spin it once you get it going.
But would it be worth it compared to other bearings (magnetic, air, ball). For a bicycle probably not, since wind/air resistance is probably the biggest thing. And rolling resistance is probably even higher than the resistance of decent ball bearings.