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development is moving fast and evolving fast and will have a significant impact on our lubricants world.
From today’s point of view there is no area where lubricants can be used in 3D printing but we need to be aware where this technology is going to cannibalise some applications of the conventional lubricants market and we have to be very open minded and to seek and look out for new opportunities for applying our lubricants that arise from the use of this new technology.
In terms of sustainability on the raw materials side we realise that we have to deal with a reduction in the number of suppliers due to collaboration and joint ventures. In terms of this wider market consolidation we need to be aware that some suppliers today might become competitors tomorrow. Already terms of supply through existing regulations and legislation are extremely restrictive. Everybody is talking about a globalised and harmonised system but in my experience we are talking more about local or regional issues.
In this area our focus and
understanding is to look at the possibilities to secure new sources of raw material supply from sustainable sources like, for example, generating hydrocarbons from sustainable sources for our applications.
Our attempts in Fuchs of how to deal with this topic of sustainability is to work with various industrial partners on joint projects to try and find out what are the possibilities in this area. One of the projects is called ZeroCarb FP or zero carbon footprint where together with other companies we are trying to generate additional value from industrial waste by applying bio-technology.
The starting point for this process is to look at the industrial waste stream, for example waste cooking oil and to apply to this cooking oil enzymes. In this small bacterial chemical factory the cooking oil is converted to fatty acids and an additional chemical modifications of these fatty acids occurs to produce special esters which can possibly be used as raw materials for our lubricants which contain a high level of sustainable components.
50 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.143 FEBRUARY 2018
Lastly e-mobility. The key driver for this area is the Paris climate agreement where countries have committed to carbon dioxide emissions in 2050 not exceeding the carbon dioxide emissions that currently exist. Focusing on the car manufacturing industry there are various options of how to achieve this. One area is to apply alternative mobility concepts like e-mobility as well as new forms of fuel cells, such as compressed natural gas or an ability to optimise the existing combustion engine technology by applying environmentally friendly fuels.
Nowadays e-mobility is very much forced by legislation, politics and even by industry
Nowadays e-mobility is very much led by legislation, politics and even by industry. Volkswagen have defined a new strategy whereby in 2025, thirty percent of their production will be ‘e’ cars. Volvo have also announced that by 2020 no combustion engine cars will be put on the road and China has defined already a goal that by 2018 and 2020, eight percent and twelve percent respectively of their cars in each of these years will be ‘e’ cars. This is going to have a certain impact on automotive lubricant demand. Our estimation is that over the next fifteen to twenty years there will be a reduction in demand in this
area by between twenty to thirty percent.
At the same time there will be new lubricant requirements arising from this new alternative mobility concept that will exist and again this will generate new types of mobility concepts that will emerge over time. The impact is not going to reduce only automotive lubricants. There will also be reduced demand for automotive engine oils and gearbox oils while greases will increase due to new types of applications. New specifications for lubricants will be required to be used within electro-magnetic fields and electric currents arising from new types of mobility, which will impact on their fluid chemistry. Low friction and high speed will continue to be requirements for mobility as will be low noise and addressing the issue of fluid to metal compatibility. New applications might also arise from battery cooling and cooling liquids in general.
Industrial applications in this new mobility world will also be affected. There will be a general trend to use new composite materials other than steel. For example some types of plastic composite
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