Everything you need to know about Lubricant and base oil

A Lubricant can be anything, which controls the friction forces between two surfaces. Lubricants’, depending upon the necessity and design can, either reduces or increase or control the friction. It is also used as a sealing medium, cooling medium and cleansing medium, depending upon the applications and design. A lubricant can be liquid, semi-liquid or the solid. Grease falls under the semi liquid category. Solid lubricants are made up of mostly of plastics, especially PVC and Teflon. Normally, a lubricant means liquid lubricant. Even those high end base stock, Base oil Sn500 can sometimes be referred as lubricants. 

A lubricant is made in the blending plant. In a blending plant, the base oils (which may constitute up to 99% of the lubricant, by volume) are mixed with the specially selected additives. Before blending, the base oils have been mixed etc. Blending is normally done in the Kettles, where the oil is heated up to 60ºC and heavily agitated. Either mechanical or pneumatic agitation can be used. Additives are then added and the whole mixture homogenised by thorough mixing - technically called blending. This is not a process whereby the chemical characteristics change - there is molecular change. After blending, the product is filtered and then packed. In special cases - like Transformer Oil - the product is degassed and thoroughly filtered. The newer form of the blending- especially used in large blending plants, is in-line blending, where the different components mix while flowing inside a pipeline.

Base Oil is the name given to the basic building block of a lubricant. But it is sometimes also called base stocks. Base stocks are mineral (or petroleum) or synthetic origin, although vegetable stocks may be used for the specialized applications. The base stock provides the basic lubricating requirements for the lubricant. However, unless it is supported with the additives, base oil will degrade and deteriorate very rapidly in some operating conditions. Depending upon the base stock, petroleum, synthetic or others, different additive chemistries need to be used for making the different kinds of lubricant. Base oils are made and supplied by the refineries. A refinery is the plant where the crude oil is distilled into various fractions. Normally the last but one portion of the heaviest stocks is lubricant base stock. The main base oil producers are big oil companies. Base oil Sn150 falls under same category.

Base oils are made in the refinery by the number of processes basically distillation. Distillation under the atmospheric pressure removes the gasoline and distillate fuel components, leaving a "long residue" containing the lube oil and the asphalt further distillation under vacuum yields “neutral distillates" overhead and an asphalt residue. Simple treatment with sulphuric acid, line and clay turns the distillate into acceptable LVI stocks. For the HVI and MVI stocks, some form of solvent extraction is necessary to remove coloured, unstable and low VI components. Finally, wax is removed by dissolving the oil into the methyl-ethyl ketone (MEK) chilling and filtering to yield oils with pour points in the -10 to -20ºC range. At the refiner's option, the oils may be "finished" with the hydrogen to remove sulphur, nitrogen and colour bodies. Just like other products teh manufacturing of base oil is also a 

No comment, be the first to comment.