Quality Control in the Manufacture of Solid Lubricant Dispersions

IN the eighteenth century there were three dry lubricants in use and these were indifferently lumped together and called “Galena,” “Plumbago”, “Molybdaena” or “Wadt” until about 1780 when they were identified as separate materials by Scheele and (independently) by Hjelm. “Galena” soon became reserved for Lead Sulphide Ore and Werner invented the new name “Graphite”, which we still use for greasy, black carbon. “Molybdaena” became the given name of Molybdenum Disulphide about 1796, and the Dublin mineralogist, R. Kirwan, presided at the naming ceremony.