Events

Date: 1 July 2026   Time: 14:00 - 15:00     

Location: People's Palace LT 1

Title: "Advancing solid interfaces and lubricants by materials modeling and design"

Abstract:

Tribology is an interdisciplinary field involving knowledge from physics, chemistry, and mechanics, focused on the study of interface phenomena, including adhesion, friction, lubrication, and wear. By advancing materials to reduce friction and wear, significant energy savings and reductions in carbon oxide emissions can be achieved. However, this is not an easy task due to the complexity of the processes occurring at the buried sliding interface, which are difficult to monitor experimentally in real time. Simulations can play a crucial role here, particularly those capable of accurately describing reactions under applied mechanical stresses.

I will present the results of high-throughput first-principles calculations of solid interface properties. Thanks to in-house developed software, we have populated databases of adhesion energies between different crystalline surfaces, analyzed them using machine-learning algorithms, and predicted how adhesion can be tuned through chemical surface modifications.

As a second topic, I will describe how we pioneered the use of machine-learning interatomic potentials in computational tribology to perform large-scale atomistic simulations of sliding nano-asperities. These simulations have enabled us to better understand the function of widely used additives and design new ones for water-based lubricants. They have also allowed us to identify strategies to reduce atomic-scale wear in diamond.

These results are part of the "Advancing Solid Interface and Lubricants by First Principles Material Design (SLIDE)" ERC project (Grant agreement No. 865633).

About Prof. M. Clelia Righi:

M. Clelia Righi is Full Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Bologna University. Her research activity focuses on the development and application of computational tools to understand and predict the behaviour of materials from first principles, particularly of surface and interface phenomena. She adopted pioneering computational approaches in tribology and applied them for understanding chemical reactions activated by mechanical stresses and designing materials to reduce friction. She received an ERC consolidator grant for the project "Advancing solid interfaces and lubricants by first principles material design" (SLIDE) in 2019 and an ERC PoC grant for the project "Tribosynthesis of carbon films for friction and wear reduction"in 2025.

M. Clelia Righi is visiting professor at the Imperial College London, UK and collaborates with multinational companies in automotive, and energy sectors. Group web page: www.tribchem.it