The Lubricating Oils Industry
The production of lubricating oils is crucial for modern industry. Lubricants are used to reduce friction and heat between mechanical components. The main function of a lubricating oil is to facilitate movement and protect surfaces from wear and corrosion.
Applications range from the automotive sector to the food industry and various manufacturing sectors. Each application requires a specific product with unique properties, tailored to ensure lubrication under expected operating conditions.
What is Lubricating Oil?
Chemically, a lubricating oil is a mixture of base oils, viscosity modifiers, and additives. Base oils make up 60% to 90% of the lubricant’s mass. There are various types of base oils, both mineral and synthetic. The base oil affects the volatility, stability, rheological properties, internal friction, and corrosion protection of the product.
Viscosity modifiers ensure the lubricant maintains adequate viscosity across a range of temperatures. Additives give the lubricant its unique properties and enhance characteristics like durability, cleaning power, friction reduction, and heat absorption.
The Production of Lubricating Oils
Producing a lubricating oil involves mixing the described components. A typical mixing plant has three main sections:
- the raw materials storage area,
- the mixing area,
- and the filling and packaging area.
Base oils are transferred to mixing vessels and blended with additives at the required temperature to achieve a homogeneous mixture. The mixed product is filtered and transferred to storage tanks for finished products, from which it is drawn, sent to the filling station, and packaged. The process can be manual or automated and managed by PLC. Each lubricant has a recipe specifying quantities, the order of adding components, mixing times, and temperatures.
The Need for Flexible Production Management
Modern industry, especially the automotive sector, sets specific requirements for lubricating oils. Each vehicle manufacturer requires a specific formulation designed to maximize performance. Many lubricant manufacturers produce a wide range of products, requiring a high degree of production flexibility with frequent product changes, without compromising process efficiency and product quality. In sectors like the food industry, lubricants must be contamination-free, hygienic, certified, and approved by regulatory authorities.
The Pigging System for Reducing Contamination
To manage high production flexibility and ensure no cross-contamination between different products, lubricant producers implement pigging systems for automatic pipeline emptying and recovery of residual products. In an automated plant, the pigging system is typically installed in the raw material discharge lines to storage tanks, the lines transporting base oils to mixers, and the additive service lines.
The pigging technique uses a device called a “PIG,” which moves through the pipeline, cleaning it and recovering high percentages of residual product. The PIG is made of different elastomeric materials depending on the product. Plants handling a wide range of components require a preliminary study to assess compatibility between the products and the PIG material.
G-RECO: Granzotto’s Solution for Lubricant Producers
Granzotto’s pigging systems are developed to meet the needs of lubricant producers. The G-RECO systems are custom-designed with attention to the plant characteristics and the products to be recovered. Implementing Granzotto’s pigging systems allows for greater production flexibility, reduced cross-contamination, and decreased raw material loss, resulting in higher productivity and product quality.
Interested in improving the production flexibility of your lubricating oils plant?
Discover how to implement a pigging system solution.
