About Lubricating Oil

A lubricant is a substance that is applied to reduce friction between moving surfaces. It can also serve to transport foreign particles. Lubricants, like waxes, are required extensively for a wide array of diverse uses. They are used in the automotive, aerospace and industrial segments and also as a medium for heat transfer, used in hydraulic systems, metal-working, etc. Worldwide they comprise a market of over U.S. $50B.

Typically lubricants contain 90% base oil (called lubricating base-oil) and less than 10% additives. The additives help to reduce friction and wear, increase viscosity, improve viscosity index, increase resistance to corrosion, oxidation, aging and contamination, etc.

Almost 95% of the total lubricants consumed in the world are mineral oil-based (petroleum extract) lubricants which, unlike synthetic lubricants, are directly obtained from crude oil. This leads to many drawbacks in their performance, especially in the high-performance applications. For instance, some of the chemicals in the crude oil may prove harmful to the lubrication process and the lubricated components. They are also susceptible to oxidation at higher temperatures.

On the other hand, synthetic lubricants such as the lubricants produced by GreenMantra’s technology, are not produced from petroleum based components. The formulation of the individual components can be varied to get desired properties based on the application need. The properties are mainly dependent on the molecular weight and the nature of the raw materials used. The main advantages of synthetic oils are their high viscosity indexes, higher flash points, lower pour points and very low volatility. This makes them valuable blending components when compounding for extreme service at both high and low temperatures.

At GreenMantra, we have successfully test marketed base lubricating oils as one of the potential outputs of our process. However, at the current time, we continue to focus on waxes as our initial market.