Lubrication is the process employed to reduce wear of one or both surfaces in close proximity, and moving relative to each another, by interposing a lubricant between the surfaces to carry or to help carry the load (pressure generated) between the opposing matting surfaces. The interposed lubricant film can be a solid, (eg graphite, MoS2) a solid/liquid dispersion, a liquid, a liquid-liquid dispersion (greases) or exceptionally a gas.Conventional lubricants can reduce friction and wear and tear to a limited scale, but nano lubricants can do a best job.

Nano lubricants
Fullerene-like WS2 and MoS2 nanoparticles and nanotubes have tribological behaviour. Under severe loads, when lubricating fluids are unable to effectively support the load and are squeezed away from the contact area, nanoparticles provide easy shear for the metal pairs due to elastic and quasi-spherical nature thereby filling the asperities of the matting parts. The flakey structure of the nested particle lead to their gradual exfoliation and the mono- or bimolecular nanosheets of WS2 adhere to the metal surfaces reducing the friction and wear between the mating pairs to a minimum.
The nanoparticles find widest use in avoiding friction due to impregnation in various metal, ceramic and polymer components, bringing about substantial reductions in friction and wearof the tribological contacts, thus finding application in mating parts of the car, aerospaceand machine-building industries and numerous other kinds of mechanical industries.
Commercial Nano lubricant additives

Commercially NanoMaterials Ltd. produces nano-scale additives for lubricants, including grease additives, oil additives, and automotive oil top-up concentrates. It is a commercial solid lubricant based on spherical inorganic nanoparticles to reduce friction and wear significantly better than conventional lubricants especially at high loads. This prolongs device service life, and lowers maintenance costs and downtimes. It is useful in applications ranging from machines and tooling to jets and satellites, as well as automobiles. NanoMaterials Ltd produces inorganic fullerene-like materials, inorganic molecules, based on metal (di)chalcogenides exhibit superior tribological (anti-friction) performance by virtue of their uniqe spherical structure and nano-size diameters.