To reduce harmful sulfur content in lubricant additives, making use of isosterism has been shown to be an effective strategy. When thiobenzothiazole compounds were used as templates, the exchange of sulfur atoms in the thiazole ring with oxygen atoms and NH groups produced twelve isosteres. Similarly, 2-benzothiazole- S-carboxylic acid esters were used as template molecules to produce six isosteres. About 30% of the isosteres exhibited a satisfactory deviation of ±5% relative to the template, ignoring the specific changes in the base oils, the...