Boric Acid + Oil = The slipperiest hardest bearing surface ever. Easily? Experimentation Reqd.

[scianiac]

I did find some research comparing MoS2 to BA directly and the results are pretty decent. Here are the two most relevant graphs:



So basically friction wise it's better only if the particle size is small enough, although I think it's kind of unfair to compare MoS2 only at 5um. It easily beats the 4um BA so how would smaller MoS2 perform, possibly far better. The wear on the other hand is more interesting and the paper does go into caveats about how the particle size starts doing weird stuff at some point and that could be the reason the MoS2 did so much worse than just the oil. Basically if particles are too large they can add to abrasive wear and if too small they can cause adhesive wear depending on the materials and surface. Also these tests were done with copper on aluminum which seems kind of weird to me. Regardless the fact that the 4um BA did so much better than the 5um MoS2 I think says something.

I think the takeaway is smaller is better for BA although not sure about sourcing 20nm BA. And this is still not some magic additive, it's good at some things, better in some ways, worse in others (like it's comparatively terrible temperature stability).

Although thinking about it there are a lot of other variables here, the reason cited in the paper for smaller is better is just because they can fit between the metals better, get sucked in and caught on micro surface features. Which makes me wonder how the lubricant effects things, for instance and grease vs an oil. Also with chain wax the idea is the wax is solid so it stays in place better, basically getting smeared in between the metals surfaces and harder to push out of the way than oil. But is still gets pushed all the way though and the additives start to work so idk.

I still think adding BA to motor oil is probably a bad idea, probably for some of the same reasons they don't add MoS2 to modern motor oils, it doesn't stay suspended well, clogs filters, interferes with other additives, causes particle emissions that coat cats, etc.

 

[Logic11]

Ok I actually had the chance to read through the patent from the patent it sounds to work a bit differently than you explained. From the patent it seems the boric acid is acting just like MoS2 or WS2 that is through slipping of the layers in it's lamellar crystalline structure. The only reference to reacting with water is "Boric oxide particles mixed with polymers form boric acid particles on the exposed surface by reacting with moisture in the surrounding atmosphere." So just another way to get the boric acid but only on the surface of a polymer instead of adding it directly. I don't see anything about forming a super hard layer by reacting with the metal.

If this is the case I wonder the differences in performance of BA, MoS2, and WS2. I know WS2 is a fair bit lower friction than MoS2, I used MoS2 in my wax but only because I didn't know about WS2 at the time. Regardless these types of additives have are not magic, they are very effective EP additives and lower friction nicely under EP conditions but they don't lower friction at lower pressure levels. Basically you need enough pressure to squeeze the layers in between the base metal and get the layers to start slipping, at low pressures the particals just sorta move around and can actually increase wear if the base material is too soft. This is why you don't want to use this these additives with polymer gears. Anyway an interesting thing I noticed is that the patent talks about combing it with other additives. I've seen interesting papers that show PTFE additives acturally work very synergisticly with MoS2 because the PTFE lowers the friction at lower pressures where the MoS2 does not and vise versa. For a chain lube through I see no reason why BA wouldn't work well, better than the current benchmark that is WS2 I'm not sure. And there is also the issue of the BA being acidic of course which can be beneficial or harmful depending on conditions I think.

I don't see anything on BA forming any super hard iron boron compouds like in boron treated steel which typically requires very high termperatures.

Edit:
Here is an interesting comparison: Table - PMC

That paper was an interesting read. Thx scianiac. I have been concentrating on BA...

Yes Boric Oxide does form on the metal surfaces.
I'm work on what's turning out to be a freaking thesis, with a hundred open tabs, on the whole story and will post it later if I manage to remain sane!

I'll also answer your above concerns.
(NB that any powder in filters will dissolve into the water (of combustion) that gets into engine oil over time... )

For the mean time; here's a paper with some nice pics and plenty of references to follow:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301679X22001141#bib41

NB that these researchers are confusing and discombobulating themselves by feeding the test surface with boric acid dissolved in ethanol and mixed with oil which largely precludes it's exposure to moisture in the air until well into the surface sliding tests.
The 'atmospheric' conditions are also nothing like those in combustion chambers. IMHO.

They then clean off the oil etc from the sample metal surface before later! looking for the BO layer, exposing any Boric Oxide layer to air moisture and turning the layer they are looking for from metal bonded BO into BA...

But more on all that later.

BA and wax:
The only info I have found so far is this patent.

Water-series wax-base lubricant and its preparing process​

A water-series wax-base lubricant is prepared from synthetic fatty amide wax, organic borate, surfactant and water through emulsifying. Its advantages include uniform adsorption layer, high friction-reducing and antiwear effect, high lubricating, anti-rust, degreasing and cooling nature, and less pollution...

CN1289834A - Water-series wax-base lubricant and its preparing process - Google Patents

A water-series wax-base lubricant is prepared from synthetic fatty amide wax, organic borate, surfactant and water through emulsifying. Its advantages include uniform adsorption layer, high friction-reducing and antiwear effect, high lubricating, anti-rust, degreasing and cooling nature, and...

patents.google.com

NB I haven't fully read/swatted it yet due to this freaking 'thesis'!

 

[Logic11]

Above post edited to add forgotten patent link.

 

[Logic11]

I did find some research comparing MoS2 to BA directly and the results are pretty decent. Here are the two most relevant graphs:
View attachment 363252
View attachment 363253

So basically friction wise it's better only if the particle size is small enough, although I think it's kind of unfair to compare MoS2 only at 5um. It easily beats the 4um BA so how would smaller MoS2 perform, possibly far better. The wear on the other hand is more interesting and the paper does go into caveats about how the particle size starts doing weird stuff at some point and that could be the reason the MoS2 did so much worse than just the oil. Basically if particles are too large they can add to abrasive wear and if too small they can cause adhesive wear depending on the materials and surface. Also these tests were done with copper on aluminum which seems kind of weird to me. Regardless the fact that the 4um BA did so much better than the 5um MoS2 I think says something.

I think the takeaway is smaller is better for BA although not sure about sourcing 20nm BA. And this is still not some magic additive, it's good at some things, better in some ways, worse in others (like it's comparatively terrible temperature stability).

Although thinking about it there are a lot of other variables here, the reason cited in the paper for smaller is better is just because they can fit between the metals better, get sucked in and caught on micro surface features. Which makes me wonder how the lubricant effects things, for instance and grease vs an oil. Also with chain wax the idea is the wax is solid so it stays in place better, basically getting smeared in between the metals surfaces and harder to push out of the way than oil. But is still gets pushed all the way though and the additives start to work so idk.

I still think adding BA to motor oil is probably a bad idea, probably for some of the same reasons they don't add MoS2 to modern motor oils, it doesn't stay suspended well, clogs filters, interferes with other additives, causes particle emissions that coat cats, etc.

Hey scianiac

I NB that the formation of a chemically inert Boron Oxide layer in metal surfaces is one of the things that differentiates
BA in oil from say M0S2, so I have been looking for research on that.
Problem is; when the researchers clean off the oil etc on such specimens that they want to look at; the moisture in the air immediately reacts with this hygroscopic layer, turning most all of it back into BA!

The other big thing that differentiates BA vs MoS2 is that MoS2 is only effective in a dry atmosphere.
As in; remove all moisture from ambient air and seal your sample in that before you start experimenting, if you want good results.
That's not practical in the real world.
BA on the other hand relies on this moisture to work, and work better with even more moisture than that.
ie: Disadvantage to advantage...

Your motor oil concerns:
In an engine and even a gearbox or diff; there's a LOT of agitation!
So it doesn't have to stay suspended; it gets suspended as soon as you start up and drive off.

But more than that; it dissolves in water. Especially hot water.
Water, as vapour or steam enters the engine crankcase at a rate of around 4ml/min(as water) via piston ring blowby in the average sized engine.
So any powder stuck in a filter or somewhere will get through it once it dissolves.
(I'd still change the oil and filter soon after treatment: BA gets in behind sludge, loosening it!)

But do NB that, unlike most and crazy as it sounds, I don't recommend the adding of much undissolved powder at all to engines; I recommend water dissolved BA (oversaturated) and no filter will be stopping that!
I believe the attempts to colloid-ise BA has way more to do with the fact that lay people will do WAY more than just NOT take you seriously if you recommend water in the engine oil. You're likely to end up in a fight!
Better to rely on the water that naturally collects in the oil (dissolved and then as emulsion) and let the chemical reaction/s required for BA to work, to take longer.
NB that the excess water will boil and/or evaporate away in short order.
Any over-saturated BA should then crystalize out, again beating any fine grinding process.

Anyway, the main reason for this post is:
As it's extremely rare to find someone your reads/understands research papers; would you mind taking a look at this one plz:

Sci-Hub | Liquid Superlubricity of Polyethylene Glycol Aqueous Solution Achieved with Boric Acid Additive. Langmuir, 34(12), 3578–3587 | 10.1021/acs.langmuir.7b04113

I NB that:
Silica is a major constituent of both steel and aluminum alloys used in engines etc.
Polyols (esters+water=alcohols) are part of most all engine etc oils.
So the paper goes a long way to helping me/us understand the SuperLubricity I personally experienced..?

 

[Logic11]

Some long sought information on how Boric Acid forms a hard, chemically inert, protective ceramic layer on metal surfaces:
It would seem that the missing link while researching this was plain old Oxidation by Oxygen!

Metal rusts.
The initial thin (still looks shiny) layer of rust is what Boric Acid reacts with to form the ceramic layer.

As Iron is the main constituent of most all alloys, aluminum excluded, lets use that as an example:

What you are seeing on the left is an Iron surface, that has the initial layer of oxidation formed on the surface.
That reacts with Boric Acid (in solution) to form the what you see on the right.
ie: The iron surface goes from being Iron Oxide to being Boric Oxide, a hard, protective layer that stops any further reactions with the iron surface, by anything, including the Boric acid crystals left above the layer.

It's the Lamellar (think packs of micro playing cards sliding over each other) Boric Acid Crystals above the Boric Oxide on Iron layer that actually provides very low friction.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...n_of_boron_on_iron-oxide_in_aqueous_solutions

Here's a similar reaction with Magnesium:

An updated review on boron removal from water through adsorption processes - Emergent Materials


Here you can read all about the confirmation of the above by Raman spectroscopy in a research paper about Boric Acid and co. as a fuel additive.
(NB The reduced fuel consumption by 6% and 10% for petrol and diesel engines respectively.)

Tribofilm formation of a boric acid fuel additive – Material characterization; challenges and insights​

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301679X22001141#bib13

 

[Logic11]

So what is Boric Acid? I got the internet. Roach powder, Don't be breathing that.

Boric Acid vaginal suppository. Lets not go there.

Boric Acid eye solution. I see.

Boric acid is used in some nuclear power plants as a neutron poison. Sounds dangerous?

According to Marty's 5 minutes of Boric Acid research. Magic powder that is anything you want it to be. Like most medicine, as long as you believe it is good, it will be good for rusty chains, vaginal issues or anything that's bothering you.

At least you did SOME research marty. Kudos for that, but you gave up too soon. WAY to soon!
Yes it's all that. Just like water is all sorts of things.
But then it's also a solid lubricant that synergizes with engine oil and the only one to form a hard protective layer on metal surfaces and use moisture in air everywhere as part of how it works.

Try searching these terms:
Dr Ali Erdemir Argonne National Labs Boric acid in oil lubricant.

If you can confirm the Dr Erdemir is a highly respected Tribologist at Argonne National Labs and that Argonne National Labs is owned by the US Dept of Energy; that would be helpful.

 

[Logic11]

Ok I actually had the chance to read through the patent from the patent it sounds to work a bit differently than you explained. From the patent it seems the boric acid is acting just like MoS2 or WS2 that is through slipping of the layers in it's lamellar crystalline structure. The only reference to reacting with water is "Boric oxide particles mixed with polymers form boric acid particles on the exposed surface by reacting with moisture in the surrounding atmosphere." So just another way to get the boric acid but only on the surface of a polymer instead of adding it directly. I don't see anything about forming a super hard layer by reacting with the metal.

If this is the case I wonder the differences in performance of BA, MoS2, and WS2. I know WS2 is a fair bit lower friction than MoS2, I used MoS2 in my wax but only because I didn't know about WS2 at the time. Regardless these types of additives have are not magic, they are very effective EP additives and lower friction nicely under EP conditions but they don't lower friction at lower pressure levels. Basically you need enough pressure to squeeze the layers in between the base metal and get the layers to start slipping, at low pressures the particals just sorta move around and can actually increase wear if the base material is too soft. This is why you don't want to use this these additives with polymer gears. Anyway an interesting thing I noticed is that the patent talks about combing it with other additives. I've seen interesting papers that show PTFE additives acturally work very synergisticly with MoS2 because the PTFE lowers the friction at lower pressures where the MoS2 does not and vise versa. For a chain lube through I see no reason why BA wouldn't work well, better than the current benchmark that is WS2 I'm not sure. And there is also the issue of the BA being acidic of course which can be beneficial or harmful depending on conditions I think.

I don't see anything on BA forming any super hard iron boron compouds like in boron treated steel which typically requires very high termperatures.

Edit:
Here is an interesting comparison: Table - PMC

Hey scianiac
Just a heads up to my 2nd last post above explaining the protective layer you don't get from anything else.

 

[rafalg]

Guys, what is actually needed to perform the Boron Acid magic on a bike chain? Not that i want to do it, but would like to know the cost versus benefit. For example, the chain costs $20-$30, oil for lubing it thru its lifetime is probably $2, and the procedure for putting it on the chain doesn't require lab equippment.
BTW i tried Teflon chain lube some time ago, and it worked, but all in all oil just seems to work better.
You say boric acid works best with oil, but i suspect oil is the ingredient that matters. Everything just works better with oil.

 

[amberwolf]

Everything just works better with oil.

Maybe not duct tape.

oil and a hammer to make it move if it isn't and should

duct tape and baling wire to stop it if it shouldn't

 

[Logic11]

Guys, what is actually needed to perform the Boron Acid magic on a bike chain? Not that i want to do it, but would like to know the cost versus benefit. For example, the chain costs $20-$30, oil for lubing it thru its lifetime is probably $2, and the procedure for putting it on the chain doesn't require lab equippment.
BTW i tried Teflon chain lube some time ago, and it worked, but all in all oil just seems to work better.
You say boric acid works best with oil, but i suspect oil is the ingredient that matters. Everything just works better with oil.

You buy BA at a chemist shop, sold as ant/roach etc poison rafalg and it's cheap.
Make sure it's Boric Acid and NOT borax!
NB that it's not poisonous to you/humans.

Fact is I have only experimented with it in car engines where there is way more moisture and heat.
(There is around a liter of water produced per liter of fuel burned)
Then in gearboxes and diffs.
And then in a couple of house fans and computer fans and things.

In the car engines it kicks in in around 10km and very noticeably!
In the fans I just added water to fine powder drop by drop till I got to about a thick custard consistency and then mixed it into the oil with a mixer doodat in a drilling machine at around 10% to the amount of oil.
There I didn't care if it took a month or more to kick in and have no idea when it did.

The finer the powder the better.
I tried a coffee grinder and it worked OK.
Then I figured that the more brittle the powder the easier it would be to powderise it, so I put the filled coffee grinder in the bottom of the freezer for a day or 2 and then ground it,
put it back in the freezer for some hours and then ground it some more etc.
That got it really very fine!

Then, based on a lot of research and some experimentation, there are 3 avenues that might be followed:

1:
Just do what I did with the fans.
Going this route means the desired reaction is likely to occur so slowly that you would not notice it in much the same way as you didn't notice your feet getting bigger till your shoes were too small for you as a kid.

2: The same thing as 1, but steam the chain while rotating it and going through the gears.
How long that would take I don't know.
Then go for a good ride.

Personally I'd go with this option 2 and repeat the steaming and perhaps oiling when the mood took me as I doubt it will kick in on the 1st go round.

3:
This one I'm one the fence about..! Highly speculative and possibly dangerous ! but most likely to give instant, noticeable results.
You'd try to replicate the conditions in an engine crankcase!

You'd dissolve BA in boiling water until the mixture was over saturated and had BA powder left over in it.
Then you'd float your oil (10 to 1) on the simmering water on the stove and give it a good mix to make an emulsion.
Then add the chain, with a whole lot of mixing and moving the chain about, while being careful to not go much over the boiling point of water or get the chain wrapped around the mixer and slapping your stove dials silly while oiling the whole kitchen!


NB
I doubt that just doing the chain alone will be noticeable from a pedaling effort POV. (although you should notice a dramatic increase in lifespan eventually)
I would say that all bearings: wheels, crankset, pedals, idlers and chain would need to be done simultaneously to actually notice a difference.
This is because I feel there is so little friction in a bicycle to begin with that it would take the sum of all parts to be noticeable..?
But NB that I'm just guessing here. This would all be experimental.

The gearboxes and differentials I have treated take around 300-400 km before I get the "Like butter!" and/or "dead quiet!" phone call and they get pretty hot.
With the price of Gasoline the treatments are done before a long trip.

I hope to do a bicycle myself sometime over the weekend (fingers crossed) and will then be able to report back.

 

[Chalo]

While you're poisoning your engine with corrosive acid, reflect on why lubrication engineers have all passed over this cheap and readily available additive that ate away 6 inches of stainless steel pressure vessel thickness when it leaked in a nuclear plant.

If it's cheap, and easy, and available everywhere, and yet nobody does it, maybe ask yourself why that is?