<p>Traditional oil analysis methods - e.g. acidity and viscosity measurements - have been used to monitor lubricant conditions. These methods can detect when the useful life of a lubricant is over but fall short when trying to gain insight on how long a lubricant in current use could last. This makes it difficult to make proactive decisions and estimate oil drain periods. Lubricants do not start to degrade until the antioxidants, which prevent from oxidation, have depleted to a certain level where they no longer can protect the base oil from degradation. During the degradation process insoluble contaminants form that can lead to sludge and varnish.</p><p>Four engine oils were oxidized using oxygen pressurized vessels and four hydraulic oils were oxidized with turbine oil stability test (TOST). At different stages of oxidation, sample aliquots were withdrawn and analysed. A blend of engine oil and biodiesel was also tested as well as a mixture of hydraulic oil and water. Samples of engine oils were also tested from a rig test running at SCANIA’s facilities in Södertälje, Sweden. The samples were evaluated with Remaining Useful Life Evaluation Routine (RULER) and Membrane Patch Colorimetry (MPC). RULER is a voltammetric method that measures the antioxidant level in a lubricant sample and MPC measure the insoluble contaminants by spectrophotometric analysis. Results from these analyses were compared to conventional methods such as acid number, viscosity, and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).</p><p>Results from the MPC-analyses showed that this method is dependent on the type of the lubricant tested. RULER performed well for all tested lubricants. It was shown that this analyse method can predict when the lubricant is going to start to degrade due to oxidation. Tests showed that the oxidation of the lubricant starts when there are 20-25% of the antioxidants remaining.</p>

Traditional oil analysis methods - e.g. acidity and viscosity measurements - have been used to monitor lubricant conditions. These methods can detect when the useful life of a lubricant is over but fall short when trying to gain insight on how long a lubricant in current use could last. This makes it difficult to make proactive decisions and estimate oil drain periods. Lubricants do not start to degrade until the antioxidants, which prevent from oxidation, have depleted to a certain level where they no longer can protect the base oil from degradation. During the degradation process insoluble contaminants form that can lead to sludge and varnish. Four engine oils were oxidized using oxygen pressurized vessels and four hydraulic oils were oxidized with turbine oil stability test (TOST). At different stages of oxidation, sample aliquots were withdrawn and analysed. A blend of engine oil and biodiesel was also tested as well as a mixture of hydraulic oil and water. Samples of engine oils were also tested from a rig test running at SCANIA’s facilities in Södertälje, Sweden. The samples were evaluated with Remaining Useful Life Evaluation Routine (RULER) and Membrane Patch Colorimetry (MPC). RULER is a voltammetric method that measures the antioxidant level in a lubricant sample and MPC measure the insoluble contaminants by spectrophotometric analysis. Results from these analyses were compared to conventional methods such as acid number, viscosity, and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Results from the MPC-analyses showed that this method is dependent on the type of the lubricant tested. RULER performed well for all tested lubricants. It was shown that this analyse method can predict when the lubricant is going to start to degrade due to oxidation. Tests showed that the oxidation of the lubricant starts when there are 20-25% of the antioxidants remaining.

Lubricants is the most broadly used item in petrochemical products. It is used in all kinds of transportation vehicles like cars, trains, and aircraft, also factory operations like hydraulic system, rotary device and metalworking process. The lubricant consumption is directly related to local industrial status. Furthermore, the growth rate of national lubricants usage amount is directly related to domestic GDP growth rate. Relative to other Asia Pacific countries, the lubricant market has always been very competitive in Taiwan. According to investigation, there are more than 200 lubricant brands in Taiwan market, including the top two local brands, CPC and FPCC; and international brands like Shell, Mobil, BP, Castrol, NOP and Idemitsu. Besides these well-known brands, a great number of domestic small and medium lubricant companies supply the rest of the market by its own branding or OEM. The research collects and analyzes global lubricant market as well as that of China and Taiwan, interviewing Taiwan lubricant experts and people in the business to discuss current local lubricant industry and future outlook for market competition analysis. The study case is based on the leading brand of Taiwan lubricant market; the company already takes more than 30% of Taiwan market share and still hunger for better achievement. According to case study company's SWOT, industrial environment, future develop direction and trend, this research summarizes and indicates strategical guidance of lubricant market for the company.

ABSTRACT The objective of this study is to obtain the friction coefficient of lubricants in tube hydroforming of guiding zone. Lubricants, universal testing machine, and friction test machine in tube hydroforming of guiding zone are used to carry out the experiments of aluminum alloy tubes. Lubricants are categorized according to their performance as follows: (1) oils, (2) emulsions, and (3) slide lacquer. Different lubricants tests, it is known that the best lubrication is derived from slide lacquer, while oils showed the poorest behavior. Different internal pressure tests, it is known that greater internal pressure causes the coefficient of friction decreasing. Different sliding velocity, it is known that sliding velocity does not affect the coefficient of friction at 100mm/min. And using CCD which is an optical instrument obtains the surface of tubes after experiments.

The effect of using a boric acid based additive in lubricants and fuel enhancers was investigated in this study. Experiments were performed in a reciprocating and a continuous sliding ball-on-disk test equipment. Different oil types and temperatures were used. The aim of the experiments was to provide information about how these boron containing lubricants work in terms of chemistry and tribology. The surfaces after tribological contact were analyzed with Light Optical Microscopy (LOM), Vertical Scanning Interferometry (VSI), Scanning Electron Spectroscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS). The boric acid based additive and the temperature used affected both the friction and wear. A higher oil temperature resulted in wider wear tracks. Oil with boron additive seemed to lower the friction coefficient at temperatures above 50 °C, compared to the same oil without boric acid; the reference oil. The tests also indicated that friction coefficients as low as 0.05 can be achieved by using a boron additive layer on the disk surface together with PAO-oil. Tribofilms containing Zn, P, S, Mg and O were formed in the wear tracks at high temperatures for both the reference oil and oil with boron additive. Oxidized regions were found in the tracks created from tests at 25 °C. Tests with oil containing boron additive resulted in lower Zn concentrations in the tracks, which is an indication that the boric acid based additive hinders the formation of these Zn rich tribofilms. To summarize, both oils and fuel enhancers with boric acid can obtain lower friction coefficients compared to those without this additive. The role of boric acid in the tests performed, both regarding the tribology and chemistry, is not yet fully understood and more chemical investigations are needed.

The quality of machinery liquids plays a critical role in ensuring safe and cost-effective operation of engines. Especially in the aviation industry, there is a great need for real-time and online monitoring of the purity, lubricity and age of machinery fluids. In this work, two optical techniques, excitation-emission matrix spectroscopy (EEMS) and cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS), are used for monitoring of degradation and contamination of aero-turbine lubricants and jet fuels using optical fiber probes. We implement EEMS combined with a modified fiber probe design to characterize lubricant quality through the characteristic fluorescence of antioxidant additives. Multi-way analysis procedures, such as parallel factor analysis, are applied to correlate spectral features to antioxidant concentration, oxidative stability, and lubricant age. The spectroscopic data are then correlated to commonly used, off-line parameters such as the induction time and the breakdown number. It is shown that the decrease in fluorescence intensities of antioxidants coincides with the decomposition of the oil base stock. The induction times of synthetic jet turbine oil degraded at 150ºC, 195ºC and 215ºC are found to be at about 10,000, 3,500 and 400 min respectively. Simple kinetic models are developed that are capable of describing antioxidant reactions as pseudo first-order processes. We also demonstrate that with fluorescence detection it is possible to determine the concentration of oil contamination in jet fuel from about 10 to 1000 ppmv. In addition, a fiber-loop cavity ring-down spectrometer has been developed to quantitatively identify oil contamination of jet fuel by measuring optical absorption in the UV region. CRDS is a very sensitive, path-enhanced absorption technique that may be used for trace-species measurements in gas and liquids. The absorption measurements on samples with small volumes are characterized by measuring the concentration of turbine oil in jet fuel from 100 000 ppmv to a limit of detection of 400 ppmv. In summary, the obtained results permit us to specify the life time of lubrication oil and to determine the contamination of jet fuel with turbine oil qualitatively and quantitatively. In a simple optical configuration the fiber-coupled EEM and CRD methods permit in situ sampling of the machinery fluids. / Thesis (Ph.D, Chemistry) -- Queen's University, 2014-04-25 13:24:37.761

acase@tulane.edu / The objective of this research is to study the surface/interfacial phenomena via video-microscopic observation and quantification inside a micro-channel or microcapillary, which can mimic the operating conditions of practical problems, such as ink-jet, lubricant oil neutralization and enhanced oil recovery. In the second chapter, a micropipette-in-microcapillary method is described for the surface tension measurement at high temperatures, which mimics the dimension and working environment of ink-jet print head. Temperature control within the confined space of a capillary was achieved by coating the outer surface of the housing microcapillary with an electrically conductive, transparent, tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) thin film as a heating jacket. The precision of this technique was discussed according to the comparisons of our results with published reference data for water, n-hexadecane, and n-decane at both room and elevated temperatures. Traditionally, the neutralization of sulfuric acid by engine oils has been the major focus, however, due to the introduce of biofuel or ethanol the acetic acid has become an important concern. In the third chapter, based on micropipette-in-square-channel video-microscopy setup, the neutralization reaction mechanism and reaction kinetics of acetic acid by fully formulated lubricant oil is discussed. It was found that the neutralization exists simultaneously on the oil-acid-interface and bulk-oil phase during the droplet shrinkage. Besides, FTIR and NMR analysis show the neutralization of acetic acid as an instantaneous process, and almost all of the dissolved acetic acid in the bulk is eventually neutralized. Due to the minor role of acetic acid dissolution compared to the interfacial reaction, an interface-reaction-rate-controlled kinetic mechanism is proposed as approximation to describe the neutralization process at different conditions. When glacial and diluted acetic acid droplets were neutralized in fully formulated lubricant oil, the experimentally measured shrinking radius agreed very well with the mathematical model. According to Arrhenius equation, the activation energy of neutralization reaction was determined to be constant and its range (Ea>21 kJ/mol) further validated the assumption of interface-controlled reaction kinetics. In the final chapter, an oil-soluble surfactant prepared by Eni S.p.A. was studied to enhance crude oil mobilization in cryolite-packed miniature bed, which provided a transparent porous media at the microscopic level. When the porous media was imbued with crude oil, the presence of the surfactant in the oil phase was able to improve the mobilization performance of crude oil by flushing. In order to deliver the oil-soluble surfactant and apply it to the removal of crude from porous media, an SDS solution was used to solubilize the surfactant, and the formation of SDS/Eni-Surfactant micellar solution was confirmed by Cryo-SEM images. Using the prepared micellar solutions in oil-removal tests on the packed bed, a very high effectiveness was demonstrated by image binarization, thus confirming the possibility to deliver liposoluble surfactants to the porous-media-trapped crude oil by means of hydrosoluble carriers. / 1 / Yufei Duan

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Maleic acid (MA) is a key intermediate for the synthesis of polyester resins, surface coatings, lubricant additives, plasticizers, copolymers, pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals. The current industrial production of MA is an energy-intensive gas-phase oxidation process of n-butane. The dwindling fossil resources and environmental issues have brought about a worldwide paradigm shift from fossil feedstocks to biomass resources for the sustainable production of fuel and chemicals. Furfural (FFR) and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) are excellent biomass-derived platform chemicals, which present an alternative route for the production of renewable bio-based MA. There has been considerable success achieved in the oxidation of furfural and HMF to maleic acid and maleic anhydride with different catalysts in recent years.

Parasitic friction and material wear exist in all moving parts, causing about 20% in global energy loss annually. Machinery startup accounts for a major portion of this loss. This issue involves a boundary lubrication problem, where rubbing surfaces are inadequately covered by lubricating oils. Lubricating oil fluids rely on tribochemical reactions to establish metalorganic tribofilms that protect the contacting surfaces. The improved oil lubrication mechanism can ensure smooth operation, improving efficiency, and extending the mechanical component lifetime. In this thesis, we study tribochemical reactions resulting from various fuel and oil blends. The interactions among blended additives are given particular attention. Lubrication phenomena are simulated using a ball-on-disk linear reciprocation configuration in a standardized tribological test rig, Optimol SRV5. The tribofilm growth patterns are investigated by measuring friction and electrical contact resistance (ECR), followed by a detailed surface analysis. The proposed lubrication mechanisms are verified with experimental and numerical simulation results. Fuel lubrication studies are conducted by investigating a) lubricity loss upon the addition of multiple oxygenated compounds, b) accelerated material wear rates observed in dieselethanol fuel blends, and c) enhanced lubrication performances with carbon-based nanofluid fuels. Lubricity loss is found to correlate with: ● Extended induction periods for ECR rises, ● Reduced average electrical contact resistance values, and ● Inhibitions of protective frictional species formations (e.g., iron oxides and graphite). The developed tribochemical reaction model advances the design of friction and extremepressure modifiers using tribo-active nanomaterials. For instance, adding carbon-based nanomaterials to fuels enhances lubrication performance by serving as tribo-active materials to accelerate tribofilm formation and by replenishing damaged surfaces. In engine oil systems, we demonstrated that the lubrication performance could be enhanced by formulating TiO2 nanoparticles modified by gallic acid esters, and polyether-based co(ter)polymers. Based on the tribochemical reaction mechanisms found in this study, we propose more designs of functionalized nanomaterials for advanced lubricant applications in future work.

Pre-ignition is a type of irregular combustion that occurs in boosted direct injection gasoline engines when one or more auto-ignition events occur before to spark ignition. Due to the direct injection of fuel into the cylinder, some liquid fuel may splash off the walls, dragging along lubricating oil. The self-ignition of liquid fuel/lubricant droplets is one of the pre-ignition sources studied. To test this stochastic behavior in a controlled manner, we examined the auto-ignition of a single droplet of a hexadecane-fuel mixture, with hexadecane serving as a surrogate for the lub oil. This experiment involved suspending a single hexadecane-fuel mixture droplet on a thermocouple bead in preheated air at temperatures ranging from 150 to 300 ° C over a wide range of pressures (4-30 bar). Various fuels with RON values ranging from 0 to 120 were blended with hexadecane at varying volume percentages of fuel in hexadecane from 0% to 100% to determine the droplet's time to ignition, denoted by TI. TI was determined by concurrently recording the history of the droplet temperature and imaging it at high speed. The ignition of the droplet is triggered by the self-ignition of the combustible mixture created by the vapor of the hexadecane-fuel mixture reacting with the heated ambient air surrounding the droplet. The increase in RON increased the TI as high RON fuels are difficult to ignite. However, the TI of the mixture depended on the fuel mixture properties even when the RON of the mixture was relatively high. Furthermore, the metal additives were added to the oil surrogate to investigate their effect on getting a pre-ignition event. The lubricant oil additives were phosphate, magnesium, and calcium. These additives were mixed with hexadecane at different concentrations. The experiments were conducted in a constant volume combustion chamber at 300 ⁰C temperature and the pressure was varied from 5 to 15 bar. The resulting TI were then compared with the TI of pure hexadecane. The results showed that addition of phosphate reduces the chances of getting a pre-ignition event, magnesium showed neutral effect while calcium enhanced the chances of getting a pre-ignition event.