Green Tribology

Tribology is the essential underpinning science of lubrication, friction and wear and therefore is paramount to the efficient operation of numerous mechanical systems such as engines, gearboxes, human joint implants, manufacturing, sustainable energy and ship performance just to name a few. The specific field of green or environment-friendly tribology emphasizes the green or clean technology aspects of wear, friction and lubrication of interacting surfaces in relative motion in numerous mechanical systems. The interaction of these surfaces is of importance for energy or environmental sustainability and has impact upon today's environment. This includes tribological technology that mimics living nature and thus is expected to be environment-friendly, the control of friction and wear that is of importance for energy conservation and conversion (thus emissions and carbon footprint), enhanced manufacturing techniques such as chemical mechanical polishing, environmental aspects of lubrication and surface modification techniques as well as tribological aspects of green applications such as the wind-power and tidal turbines. The area of green tribology will therefore directly affect the economy by reducing waste and extending equipment life, improve the quality of life and will help reduce the carbon footprint of many mechanical systems. It will also help address the need for increased resource responsibility and lower the health risks by creation of legislation compliant surfaces and coatings to replace potential hazardous coatings currently being used.

The proposal is from a group that is very able to manage the highly innovative and challenging research into the new area of Green Tribology. The group will be able to join various disciplines together that are essential to establishing a multidisciplinary team, namely chemistry, tribology, mechanical engineering, surface science, material science and manufacturing. The grant would focus on developing the right environment for innovative research and new directions to be studied and therefore designs for managing a flexible research portfolio are presented. The research would cover modelling and experimental approaches. The team will build world-leading and disruptive research solutions and demonstrators in green tribo-materials and natural product chemistry, tribo-metrology, tribo-electrochemistry, tribo-smart coatings, tribo-sensing to develop green tribology solutions.

The outcomes of this Green Tribology Platform grant will directly benefit a broad range of consumer products associated with automotive (sustainability and durability of vehicles), renewable energy production (marine- and land-based), household appliances, industrial machines and plants, to the healthcare sector by providing green tribology solutions, more energy efficient systems and innovative coatings to allow improved international competiveness, product robustness and market distinction. The grant will facilitate new and improved environmentally friendly products and manufacturing processes, as well as allow the UK to have greater competitiveness in the micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and tiny-technologies markets. These products and potential spin-out companies formed from the research outcomes will aid wealth creation. The UK industrial community would also by being able to rapidly take a distinctive technological advantage from having a specialised multidisciplinary green tribological research group and facilities able to generate and model unique systems with greater functionality and performance while offering compliance with increasingly strict legislation and demands for sustainability. Thus, the new Green tribology team will accelerate improvements in tribological performances leading to longer life cycles for mechanical systems and accordingly reduced consumption of materials. At the environmental level, it should be expected that there will be reduced energy consumption and the replacement of toxic lubricants by biodegradable and renewable organic substitutes. The Green Tribology research group would also act as a catalyst to simulate research across the UK. The immediate benefit will be to the partner companies of the Green Tribology team and the wider nCATS industrial partners and collaborators listed here: Wartsila, International Paint, Castrol, BAE Systems Surface Ships, Airbus, Chevron Oronite, Daido Industrial Bearings Europe, DePuy International, DSTL, ESR Technology, FAG Aerospace, GE Aviation, Hardide, Lloyd's Register, Mantis Deposition, Micro Materials, Oerilikon Balzers Coating, Phoenix Tribology, Plasma Quest, Rolls-Royce, Rotork Controls, Schlumberger, Score Europe, Shell, TaiCaan Technologies, Teer Coatings, Tribotex, TWI, Vestas, Philips Oral Healthcare, Diamond Hard Surfaces, GKN Aerospace, Smith & Nephew, Kittiwake, TecVac, Element 6, Diamond Detectors Ltd., Transvac and Omega Completions. Every attempt will be made to broaden the impact across the UK throughout the grant period by various methods of disseminating research output and holding workshops and open days. UK industry will benefit by having access to a highly skilled research group and fully equipped laboratories, as well as specialised computational models to allow product design concepts and sub-system performance testing. The likely timeframe for true impact of this research is likely to be up to 10 years due to the novelty involved but immediate improvements in energy efficiency of many tribological systems are anticipated by the end of the grant period.