Page 26 - FLI 2013 - 4th Quarter

FUELS & LUBES INTERNATIONAL Quarter Four 2013 26
Meghana Vyas at[email protected] or Call +91 95409 91022
areas, said Bredsguard.
Based in Irvine, Calif., the
company, which was founded in
2006, has received funding from
St. Louis-based agricultural giant
Monsanto Co., and British oil
major, BP. In addition to their
equity investment, the arrange-
ment with Monsanto includes
a license for the production of
Monsanto’s Vistive® Gold high-
oleic soybeans.
One of the most often cited
benefits of bio-based oils are
their environmental impact and
their renewability. With regards
to the former, bio-based oils
surpass their traditional counter-
parts because “In regular engine
operations, most of the emis-
sions come from the lubricant.
Oil vapors that don't get burned
condense on the solid particles of
soot that fly out through the ex-
haust pipe. Vegetable oil doesn't
evaporate as easily as petroleum-
based oil, so less finds its way out
of the engine.”3
The basic function of a lubri-
cant is to prevent metal-on-metal
contact while transferring heat
from friction away from contact
points; petroleum-based oils
generally require modification to
achieve this, while vegetable oils are
“excellent in terms of functionality
without chemical modification.” 4
One promising class of
bio-synthetic estolides is those
containing saturated capped
estolides of oleic acid. These tend
to do well in cold temperatures
with pour points (the lowest
temperature at which a fluid will
pour or flow) of between minus
15oC and minus 29oC, as well as
good oxidative stability. Some
seed oils show promise, albeit
with a limited availability. The
lesquerella auriculata seeds, for
example, contain 32% oil, 96% of
which are estolides.
Estolides have potential uses
in a wide variety of lubricant
applications such as food-safe
(incidental contact), cooling
fluids, crankcase and drive line
lubricants, hydraulic fluids,
dielectric fluids, metalworking
fluids, gear oils, marine oils and
electrical insulation oils (EIOs)
in transformers.
A number of companies, in-
cluding Chevron, Dow Chemical
and Petrobras, have patents on
file relating to estolides.
Bruce Marley, senior vice
president of sales and marketing
for Biosynthetic Technologies,
explained that engine oils can be
formulated using a combination
of estolides, Group III base oils
and PAOs, depending upon what
characteristics are needed. The
company’s work has “cast aside
all past perceptions that base oils
derived from natural feed stocks
such as vegetable oils aren’t vi-
able” in the motor oil market.
More specifically, Marley sees
estolides competing with Group
III base oils in performance and
with Group IV and V base oils
on both performance and price.
Generally, combining PAOs
with an ester will lead to bet-
ter stability under heat while
maintaining high compatibility
with mineral oils. Some high-
performance motor oils contain
up to 20% by weight esters. 5
A concern with estolides,
however, is their low-temperature
properties. It appears the degree
to which estolides can perform at
low temperatures has to do with
the oil from which they were pro-
duced. A study from Evonik, one
of the world’s leading specialty
chemical companies, found that
estolides provide much better
cold-temperature performance
than the more commonly used
olefin copolymers.
Soybeans are being used as the
current feedstock of Biosynthetic
Technologies. The company has
a license and supply agreement
with Monsanto, an important step
toward launching “domestically-
sourced, renewable bio-synthetic
lubricants,” Barbieri said.
可生产孟山都的Vistive® 金色
高油酸大豆（Gold high-oleic
soybeans）。
生物基础油的最大好处是其
环境影响和可再生性。对于前者，
由于“在普通发动机运行中，大部
分的排放物都来自润滑油。没有
燃烧的油蒸汽在由排气管排出的
碳黑颗粒上冷凝。植物油不如石
油基础油那么容易蒸发，因此很
少从发动机中排出”3，生物基础
超过了其他所有的类似产品。
滑润油的基本功能是防止金
属与金属的接触，并将接触点摩
擦所产生的热带走；石油基础油
一般需要通过改性才能做到这一
点，而植物油“在无需化学改性的
情况下就具有出色的性能”。4
有一类具有潜力的生物合
成交酯是含有饱和油酸交酯。
这些交酯有着良好的低温性
能，倾点在-15C到-29C之间；
和氧化稳定性。有些植物油也
很有潜力，但供应量有限。例
如，lesquerella auriculata的
种子，含油量32%，其中96%是
交酯。
交酯可用于多种应用，如食
品安全（偶尔接触）、冷却液、曲
轴箱和驱动系统润滑油、液压
油、绝缘油、金属加工油、齿轮
油、船用油和变压器中的电气绝
缘油（EIO）。
多家公司，包括雪佛龙、陶
氏化学、巴西国家石油公司，都
申请了与交酯相关的专利。
Biosynthetic Technolo-
gies的销售和市场高级副总裁
Bruce Marley解释到，发动机油
可以采用交酯、三类油和PAO的
混合配方，这取决于需求什么特
性。公司在工作中 “抛弃了源于
植物等天然原料所生产的基础油
在发动机油市场上不可行”这个
观点。具体而言，Marley认为交
酯可以在性能上与三类基础油竞
争，在性能和价格上与四类和五
类基础油竞争。
把PAO与酯进行混合可以获
得更好的热稳定性，同时又保持
着与矿物油的兼容性。一些高性
能的发动机油最高含有20%（重
量）的酯。5
但是交酯有一个问题是其低
温性能。交酯的低温性能取决于
原料作物。世界领先的特种化学
品公司Evonik的一项研究发现，
交酯的低温性能较常用的烯烃共
聚物要好得多。
Biosynthetic Technolo-
gies目前采用大豆为原料。“公司
与孟山都签有许可和供应协议，
这是推出“以国内原料生产的可
再生生物合成润滑油”的重要一
F E A T U R E 专题报道
3 Boehman, A.L., et al. 1998
4 Johnson, Rhodes, and Allen 2002
Johnson，Rhodes和Allen 2002
5 R.H. Schlosberg, J.W. Chu, G.A. Knudsen, E.N. Suciu and H.S. Aldrich, High stability esters for
synthetic lubricant applications, Lubrication Engineering, February 2001, pp. 21-26
R.H. Schlosberg，J.W. Chu，G.A. Knudsen，E.N. Suciu和H.S. Aldrich，“合成润滑油应用的高
稳定性酯”，《润滑工程》（Lubrication Engineering），2001年2月号，第21-26页