In this paper, we report a new solution synthetic route to prepare Pb-Bi bimetal nanoparticles from bulk ingot that is different from conventional solution methods. The Pb-Bi nanoparticles were prepared by dispersing directly melt Pb-Bi ingot in a suitable solvent and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and other techniques. Transmission electron microscopy shows that the Pb-Bi nanoparticles appear a spherical shape with an average diameter of 50mn. X-ray diffraction studies show that the Pb-Bi nanoparticles contain crystalline Pb7Bi3, Bi and a little amount of PbO. Tribological results show that Pb-Bi nanoparticles as a lubricating additive show good antiwear proper-ties. In addition, the formation mechanism of the Pb-Bi nanoparticles was also discussed. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.