Surface Chemistry in Tribology

In general, the twentieth century marked the first major incursion of chemists into the world of tribology. Driven partly by the need for improved lubricants for new machines developed in the first few decades of the century, and partly by new analytical capabilities, lubricant chemists and tribochemists were to become full partners in the science of tribology. In this review we cover a number of topics in surface chemistry in tribology, which serve both to illustrate some of the successes in tribochemical research over the past decades, and also to show that much work remains to be done before true, first-principles tribochemistry-based lubricant and tribopair design can begin.