Alkylimidazolium tetrafluoroborates are promising versatile lubricants for the contact of steel/steel, steel/aluminium, steel/copper, steel/SiO2, Si3N4/SiO2, steel/Si(100), steel/sialon ceramics and Si3N4/sialon ceramics; they show excellent friction reduction, antiwear performance and high load-carrying capacity.

Graphene and its derivatives are potential flame retardant materials with good flame retardant performance; in particular, graphene as an adjuvant in combination with inorganic nanomaterials may be a promising candidate of flame retardant. This review describes the flame retardant mechanism, the development trend, and the classification of graphene-based flame retardants. It points out that graphene has attracted intensive interests in the fields of electronics, energy, and information, due to its excellent properties such as high thermal conductivity, good electron transport ability, and large specific surface area. In the meantime, graphene can change the pyrolysis as well as the thermal conductivity, heat absorption, viscosity and dripping of polymer during the combustion process. In other words, graphene can improve the thermal stability of polymer and delay its ignition, and it can also inhibit fire from spreading and reduce heat release rate.

Hierarchical structure of flower-like CuO standing on Cu(OH)2 nanorod arrays, similar to that of a lotus leaf, was directly fabricated on the surface of copper foils by a simple one-step solution-immersion process. It was found that the diameter of the nanorods ranges from 100 to 500 nm, and the length of the rods is about tens of micrometers. Synchronously, flower-like CuO with a diameter of about 3−5 μm was also deposited from the bulk solution during the growth of nanorod arrays. The wettability of the surface with hierarchical structure was changed from surperhydrophilicity to superhydrophobicity by chemical modification with stearic acid (STA) or 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane (PDES). The static contact angles (CAs) for water on both of the modified surfaces were larger than 160°, which was closely related to the chemical modification and hierarchical structure. Compared with the STA-modified surface, the PDES-modified surface had a lower CA hysteresis (CAH) and adhesion for water droplets. Furthermore, the surfaces retained good superhydrophobic stability in long-term storage as well, which should be critical to the application of Cu materials in engineering.