EDITORIAL article Editorial: Advances in Tribochemistry Provisionally accepted The final version of the article will be published here soon pending final quality checks Notify me Lei Chen 1*, Andreas Rosenkranz 2, Lev S. Rapoport3 and Seong H. Kim4 1Southwest Jiaotong University, China 2University of Chile, Chile 3Holon Institute of Technology, Israel 4The Pennsylvania State University (PSU), United States Gao et al. report the macroscale superlubricity phenomenon at a temperature of 300 °C for surfaces produced by burnishing powders of antimony trioxide (Sb2O3) and magnesium silicate hydroxide coated with carbon (MSH/C) onto nickel superalloy substrates. In-situ chemical analysis together with other atomic structure characterization indicated that the superlubricity nature of the newly designed MSH/C-based coating could be attributed to the synergistic effect of antimony oxide adhesion layer, tribochemically-active MSH powders, and a tribochemically-generated superficial carbon film. Furthermore, Tan et al. verified microscale superlubricity for uniform and ordered selfassembly of several liquid crystals on a highly-oriented pyrolytic graphite surface. Combined with density functional theory calculations, they confirmed the positive correlation between friction and interfacial interaction strength, thus suggesting the dominant contribution for energy dissipation to be the continuous formation, breaking and reformation of physical bonds.To understand the interfacial lubrication mechanism in detail, Zou et al. conducted molecular dynamics simulations to reveal the adhesive interaction between two rubbing surfaces made of Fe and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). The interfacial adhesion was investigated as a function of the surface orientation of Fe and the chemical functionality of PTFE molecules. They clarified that the adhesion interaction between Fe and the adsorbed PTFE transfer film can be attributed to the van der Waals force originating from the iron atoms of the Fe surface and the F atoms of the adsorbate film.Mechanochemical reaction may not only determine the lubrication properties, but also play an important role in ultra-precision surface manufacturing. Considering chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), the planarization process can be viewed as the controllable atomic material removal by adjusting tribochemical reactions. Guo et al. compared the mechanochemical wear of oxide-free and oxidized GaN surfaces rubbed against Al2O3 nano-asperities as a function of ambient humidity. The tribochemical reactions occurring in that interface were described by mechanically-assisted Arrhenius-type kinetics model. This further indicated that the outermost surface oxide layer enlarges the energy barrier for the initiation of the mechanochemical atomic attrition, resulting in low nanoscale wear of oxidized GaN compared to oxide-free specimen.Michalchuk et al. reviewed the overall topic "tribochemistry" (or named mechanochemistry, mechanical alloying). Moreover, they discussed, which experimental parameters or conditions are indispensable to describe tribochemical reactions, which would be helpful to check reproducibility of experimental data by for others and make comparison possible even if different experimental conditions are employed. The main type of mechanical interaction and the critical parameters determining the activation of the tribochemical reactions are encoded by a clear, concise, and self-explanatory way.Finally, Luo et al. reviewed the latest developments of tribochemical wear of 2D materials (graphene, h-BN, MoS2), carbon bulk materials (diamond, DLC films), silicon-based materials (silicon and silicon oxide, silicon-based ceramics and silicate glasses) and metals (Al and Cu), which are commonly used as solid lubricants, tribo-elements, or structural materials of micro/nano-electromechanical devices. Based on theoretical and experimental results, the underlying tribochemical wear mechanisms and processes were discussed especially in terms of the formation of interfacial bonds.As guest editors, we hope that this special issue covering the latest advancements of tribochemistry can serve as a useful guide for researchers and engineers in similar or related fields thus putting more emphasis on the overall topic due to its universality in mechanically stressed, dynamic contacts. We thank all contributors (authors and co-authors) for their excellent work and all reviewers for their selfless dedication. We also thank the editorial staff of Frontiers in Chemistry for providing valuable assistance in the entire editing process. Keywords: Tribochemistry, Tribochemical wear, Adhesive interaction, Triboelectrochemical reaction, superlubricity, Interfacial bonding Received: 21 Apr 2022; Accepted: 22 Apr 2022. Copyright: © 2022 Chen, Rosenkranz, Rapoport and Kim. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. * Correspondence: Prof. Lei Chen, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China