PFI-TT: Novel ionic liquid lubricant for next-generation information storage technology

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project are two-folds. First, the novel ionic liquid lubricant developed will improve the reliability and areal density of Hard Disc Drives (HDDs), which has great impact in numerous applications involving information storage using electronic and consumer devices.

Second, the proposed research will educate the next-generation of engineers with both engineering training and entrepreneurial mindsets and skills. The students, particularly female and underrepresented minority (URM) students, will take the entrepreneurial training, which provides them the in-depth knowledge on small business development and prepares them for future careers in entrepreneurship.

The proposed project aims to close the technical gap to bring a novel ionic liquid lubricant to the market. In Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR), which is the next-generation HDD technology, media lubricant needs to have high thermal stability and high fly clearance. However, the state-of-the-art lubricant, i.e., perfluoropolyether (PFPE), is not thermally stable enough and has low fly clearance.

In preliminary research, a novel ionic liquid lubricant has been developed and industrial tests showed it has the desired high thermal stability and fly clearance. In the proposed research, the plan is to: (1) improve the reaction yield to ~80% by optimizing the reaction time and temperature; (2) scale up the synthesis by ~20 times via a novel membrane-aided simultaneous reaction-separation process; and (3) conduct drive-level industry testing to fully qualify the ionic liquid lubricant.

The novelty of the proposal lies on the following two aspects. First, the membrane-aided simultaneous reaction-separation makes large-volume production much more efficient. Second, the drive-level industry testing is expected to fully demonstrate the advantages of the ionic liquid lubricant with respect to the state-of-the-art PFPE lubricant, which will greatly advance the HDD technology.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.