The following paper is discussing the Electrion product
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ls.85/abstract
note, this is not an ionic liquid (not a liquid salt).
Quote:
Unlike extreme pressure additives, which act when a direct surface-to-surface contact occurs in the boundary lubrication regime, ionised vegetable oils function by postponing the onset of the boundary lubrication regime as explained in Figure 2. Equivalently, one may talk about expanding the borders of the hydrodynamic lubrication regime: in a loading cycle (when moving from the right to the left over the Stribeck curve), the film lubrication will stay longer and stand higher loads, and in an unloading cycle (moving from the left to the right), the change from boundary lubrication to hydrodynamic lubrication will occur earlier.
Quote:
Ionised vegetable oils can also be regarded as mild anti-wear agents working at moderate temperatures and loads where conventional anti-wear and EP additives, such as tricresylphosphate, zinc dialkyldithiophosphate and methylene-bis(di-n-butyldithiocarbamate), to mention a few, are not yet reactive.
Quote:
Thus, an increase in temperature results in higher solubility of E-ION R in fuel, and therefore, the degree of surface coverage at a
given additive concentration should decrease, and the friction coefficient, accordingly, increase. In practice, it has been observed that the friction coefficient decreases with temperature. The most feasible explanation of this anomaly is that the adsorbed layer never reaches an equilibrium state in the tribotests conducted. As surfaces are being rubbed against each other, the adsorbed layer keeps constantly being damaged and regenerated. The rate of regeneration is directly proportional to the rate of adsorption, and both increase with temperature. This reasoning shows that evaluations of the degree of surface coverage from the concentration dependence of friction coefficient may be misleading.
Quote:
Wear preventive characteristics of a few model lubricants formulated with ionised vegetable oils and conventional EP additives were compared using the standard four-ball method (see Table VI). These results show that there is a synergetic effect between ionised vegetable oils and EP additives. A similar conclusion has been arrived at by other authors advocating the use of vegetable oils in automotive lubricants
and for shannow:
Quote:
Lubricity-enhancing effect of ionised vegetable oils in turbine oil formulations is even more pronounced. As can be seen in Figures 8 and 9, the addition of 10% E-ION R to a turbine oil significantly reduces chatter and eliminates slip-stick.
oh and with regards to the mentioning in the OP document; it seems in both world wars the installations got confiscated and moved to Germany.