Dry ice hoverboard: Friction reduction by the Leidenfrost effect

Friction reduction is a major issue in multiple domains, and lubrication is often used in order to achieve it. Gas lubrication is a very efficient way to increase slipperiness, reducing the friction coefficient to almost zero. The main challenge with gas lubrication is to keep the gas inside the contact area due to the fact that it is easily squeezed out because of its low viscosity. Here we use the Leidenfrost effect to form a lubricating gas layer in between a disk of dry ice and a substrate, thus leading to lubricated friction. The gas is continuously provided by sublimation due to the temperature difference between dry ice and substrate. We perform different experiments on dry ice, measuring friction and parameters inside the gas layer. We then chart the crossover from high to low friction as a function of pressure and temperature, and we reveal the role of gas layer thickness. The substrate temperature and macroscopic pressure are found to strongly affect the friction, and very low friction is reached only in particular conditions. These conditions are easily controlled through external parameters, which allows us to use the Leidenfrost effect to efficiently modify friction.