Nanoscale surface passivation

Intuitively passivation is like the flour on the bread-dough that one adds such
that it does not stick together with itself and just about anything.

• Surfaces of crystolecules that are supposed to come in contact with other surfaces need to be passivated in order to not fuse together irreversiby .
• Surfaces of crystolecules that are supposed to come in contact with air need passivation.
  (well, first air contact may be used for passivation of non-sliding surfaces but the result may be somewhat random)

passivation of diamond, lonsdaleite and other allotropes of carbon

Diamond and it's allotropes are best passivated with hydrogen.
This works very well and makes vers stable surfaces. We know that from hydrogarbon chains that make up
gasoline and all of our current day plastics.

Passivation of silicon containing gemstone like compounds

In the case of pure silicon the bigger size of silicon atoms already makes for more pronounced surface corrugations in case of a hydrogen passivation.
This makes designs for superlubricating surface interaction harder.
Increased corrugation already starts with moissanite (SiC) where only every second atom is a silicon.

A simple hydrogen passivation is less stable than in the case of carbon.
For silicon OH groups seem to be still quite stable.
As one can see from the highly stable Si-O bonds in polymer chains of current day available silicones.

The perhaps more stable hydroxy passivations are probably pretty bad for sliding interfaces because:

• Hydroxy passivations (·OH) are big singly bonded protrusions prone to snapback.
• With hydroxy passivations (·OH) being angled there is a unconstrained degree of freedom.
  This may serve as an additional pathway for energy dissipation.

Surface corrugation really becomes terrible when going to sparsely filled oxide minerals like quartz (SiO₂).
These have much bigger voids inside than more compact gemstone like compounds.
Plus they especially like hydroxy passivations.
Options for these more sparse materials:

• use them just for structural purposes
  
• give them some sort of much smoother surface cover like graphene maybe. Question is: How to "tack" it on neatly and tightly?
• look for similar less sparse materials stishovite instead of quartz (both polymorphs of Silicon dioxide SiO₂

Passivations for transition metal monoxides

Maybe these could be covered with graphene?
See: Sanwich compound

Related

• Passivation bending issue – crystolecule deformations (strains) induced by undesired stresses caused by passivations

---

• Passivation layer mineral – This is about macroscale passivation. At the nanoscale passivation layer minerals still need passivation to not fuse together.