Flying freely in the super-slippery world-Interview with Academician Luo Jianbin, winner of the Tan Kah Kee Prize for Science

"There is a long way to go in Xiu Yuan, and I will go up and down to search for it." Since his youth, Luo Jianbin has forged an indissoluble bond with tribology. After more than 20 years of exploration in experiments and applications in exploration, he found that he was infinitely close to the super-slippery world in his heart.

On the afternoon of August 28, the Chinese Academy of Sciences held a press conference in Beijing to announce the winners of the 2020 Tan Kah Kee Science Award and the winners of the Tan Kah Kee Youth Science Award, Dean of the School of Mechanical Engineering of Tsinghua University, and Honorary Dean and Chief Scientist of the Tianjin High-end Equipment Research Institute of Tsinghua UniversityAcademician Luo Jianbin won the 2020 Tan Kah Kee Science Award.

We are fortunate to have a face-to-face talk with Academician Luo Jianbin about the award-winning experience and his world of tribology on the occasion of the National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The Tan Kah Kee Science Award, formerly known as the Tan Kah Kee Award, was established in 1988. It is a science award named after Mr. Tan Kah Kee, a famous overseas Chinese leader who has made outstanding contributions to the development of science and education in my country,It is used to reward scientists who have made major original scientific and technological achievements in China and made outstanding contributions to the development of science and education in China.The award is selected every two years, relying on the evaluation organized by the academic department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and sets up six awards: Mathematical Science Award, Chemical Science Award, Life Science Award, Earth Science Award, Information Technology Science Award and Technical Science Award. Up to now, the Tan Kah Kee Science Award has selected 35 award-winning achievements (40 award-winning scientists), and the Tan Kah Kee Youth Science Award has selected 26 young scientific and technological talents. Jiang Zemin, Li Lanqing, Liu Yandong and other party and state leaders, as well as Yang Zhenning, Ding Zhaozhong and other Nobel Prize winners have attended the award ceremony. The award adheres to strict evaluation standards to ensure the high level and quality of the award-winning results. It has established a high prestige and has a wide range of influence in the scientific and technological circles at home and abroad.

The 2020 Tan Kah Kee Science Award and the Tan Kah Kee Youth Science Award were launched on January 1, 2019. After several stages of recommend, review, peer expert communication review, and council final review, five Tan Kah Kee Science Award winning projects were finally produced.Academician Luo Jianbin won the Tan Kah Kee Technical Science Award for the project "Mechanism of Particles in Friction and Super-slippery Mechanism.

Xiao Bian: Academician Luo is good. First of all, I would like to thank Academician Luo very much for accepting the interview with the high-end institute before the double festival comes. At the same time, I would like to congratulate Academician Luo once again on winning the 2020 Chen Jiageng Science Award. You have won many awards. Can you talk about the difference between the Tan Kah Kee Science Award and other awards?

Academician Luo: Hello, let me briefly talk about this award. The Tan Kah Kee Science Award can be said to be an affirmation of previous work experience and representative achievements. It needs to provide two papers, one is the earliest and the other is the recent paper as supporting materials to introduce the highlights of the research to the present.In 1996, the English version of the first paper was officially published. At that time, I jointly proposed the state of thin film lubrication with my mentor, Academician Wen Shizhu.Before this, it was an elastohydrodynamic lubrication state. Generally, a new lubrication state can only be proposed at an interval of 40 to 50 years.

　　The second paper presents the effect of particles on polishingWe used our own fluorescent particle measuring instrument to observe the movement of fluorescent particles in water, solved the problem of Marangoni flow in the process of droplet evaporation in the past hundred years, and re-proposed the criterion of Marangoni flow. The accuracy of the criterion has increased from the original 30% to the current 90%.

Xiao Bian: What is the significance of the application of polishing?

Academician Luo: The Marangoni effect is mainly used in the field of polishing to improve the cleaning effect of the wafer surface. The number of residual particles on the wafer surface is one of the most critical indicators of wafer manufacturing, one more particle, one more scrap point. The Marangoni effect is of great help to wafer cleaning and is still under study. The effect has been improved a lot.

Xiao Bian: Has it been applied to the polishing machine developed by Huahai Qingke, an industrialized company?

Academician Luo: Yes, it has been applied to polishing production and equipment. Now the application of Marangoni effect in wafer cleaning is done by Huahai Qingke.

Xiao Bian: We know that you have put forward the theory of super-skating. Can you give us a popular science about what super-skating is?

Academician Luo: To speak of super-slip, one must first understand friction and wear. The friction process will cause material wear, friction and wear are often coupled together.

Human disposable energy, such as coal, oil, solar energy, etc., the 1/3 of these disposable energy is consumed through friction. 80% of the equipment is scrapped through the wear and tear of key moving parts. This loss accounts for 2%-7% of a country's GDP output, and it will be higher in manufacturing-oriented countries.

China's GDP output value last year was 99 trillion, which is 4.95 trillion according to 5%, and the loss caused by friction and wear is huge. How to reduce the loss of friction and wear can be said to be a Chinese dream in the field of tribology.

　　What is super-slip? In theory, super-slip has zero friction. In engineering, the friction coefficient is defined to be one thousandth, which is one order of magnitude smaller and below one thousand grades is called super-slip.For example, the friction coefficient between metals with lubricant is 0.05, and the super-slip can reach 0.005, which is equivalent to reducing the original friction energy consumption by an order of magnitude.

Xiao Bian: What are the benefits of this?

Academician Luo: The advantage is that once the friction is less, the wear is less, and the wear is almost close to zero, so the friction and wear will be greatly reduced, which can save energy.

Editor: Can you give me a few more examples of what problems can be directly solved in industrial applications?

Academician Luo: For example, if we can make an ultra-smooth gearbox in the future, the noise of this gearbox will be very low.

The Ministry of Science and Technology has just approved a special project for transformative technology. It wants to make the gearbox of high-speed rail with a speed of more than 400 kilometers per hour into an ultra-slip gearbox. Then the equipment will be quiet, low-power and long-life. Large fan gearbox wear is very severe, so energy consumption will be reduced.

Now, it has been realized in theory, and it can also be realized in the laboratory. The next step is to push up the application in the industrial and military circles, including many places underwater and where noise problems are involved.

Editor: I hope that our technological breakthrough can solve the problem of my country's major "stuck neck" technology, and use theoretical breakthroughs in more practical applications.

Academician Luo: Many of my country's "stuck neck" technologies are related to lubrication. If the lubrication problem is solved, a very important aspect of this technology will be solved. Objectively speaking, it is a theoretical breakthrough to provide support for application, otherwise the theory will have no value.

Xiao Bian: To ask a bigger question, what is the current research direction of tribology in the world?

Academician Luo: The whole world is very concerned about ultra-skating, and the breakthrough has not been in a few years. Then there is the lubrication under harsh working conditions, such as high pressure, high temperature, high vacuum, ultra-low temperature lubrication. There is green lubrication and lubrication in the biological field.

Xiao Bian: In 2017, the World Tribology Conference moved to China for the first time. Tsinghua University hosted it and the High-end Institute also co-hosted the 6th World Tribology Conference. Can you talk about the stage of China's tribology and the position of China's tribology research in the world?

Academician Luo: from the field of tribology, there are three major regions in the world: one is America represented by the United States; the other is Europe represented by Britain, France and Germany. Britain did a lot of work in the 1950 s; the other is Asia, represented by China and Japan.

These three regions can be said to be a tripartite confrontation. For example, at the World Tribology Conference and the tribology conferences of various countries, basically China, the United States, and Europe will each present representatives to make conference reports.

In terms of the total number of published papers, China and the United States are the two countries with the largest number of publications in the world, but China has surpassed the United States since 2012.

Editor: We have learned that the Tan Kah Kee Science Award has played a very good incentive role in promoting the innovation and development of science and technology in my country, and rewards major original scientific and technological achievements made in China. At present, our country attaches great importance to the independent innovation and development of science and technology. The platform of the high-end institute has gathered more than 30 scientific research teams, all of which are carrying out independent innovation. Finally, do you have anything to say to the team and share with everyone?

Academician Luo: I think I 'd like to share this sentence with you.

"See the original, scientific exploration is endless.

With its flow, technology breaks through continuously."

We hope that our team will continue to explore and explore technical principles, so as to continuously solve technical problems for enterprises and achieve applications and breakthroughs.

Xiao Bian: Thank you very much for bringing us this vivid tribology course in spite of his busy schedule. Tomorrow is the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, I wish you a happy holiday in advance!

Academician Luo: One side is the birthday of the motherland and the other is the reunion of thousands of families. The peace of the country and the happiness of the people are inseparable from the support of science and technology. Here, I wish you all the best for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the happiness of the whole family, and the great motherland's science and technology take off and become more prosperous!

 

In the interview, Academician Luo said that he once encouraged students"The evil cold of the sky does not make people drop out of winter, the evil of the land does not make people drop out of wide range, and the gentleman does not make people drop out of Hungary and Hungary."No matter what others say, we should stick to it. Perseverance is the most important thing in scientific research. He hopes to lead the team to carry out the cause of super skating to the end. We also hope that Academician Luo and his team can solve more "stuck neck" problems for China and achieve more fruitful scientific research results!

 

Report by the Enterprise Publicity Office of the Hospital Affairs Department

Wen/Wang Xiao