Lube-Tech
The requirement of the Vessel General Permit (VGP) by the US Environmental Protection Agency has resulted in increased demands for biobased wire rope grease. Figure 6 shows a greasy applicator that allows application of grease to wire ropes rapidly as the rope travels through the clamshell design applicator. This design comes with two chambers one filled with a biobased liquid penetrant and the other with biobased grease. Wire brushes help to push the greases through the strands.
A new manufacturing process that utilises microwaves for reaction heating has reduced exposure time to a fraction of conventional heating. Also, since there
PUBLISHED BY LUBE: THE EUROPEAN LUBRICANTS INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
No.118 page 5
are no hot spots in microwave processing, as in the walls of conventional reactors, the biobased grease prepared with microwaves offers superior stability. Due to advances in seed oil technologies resulting in higher stability vegetable oils, advances in additives and anti-oxidant technologies, and now the microwave processing, today there are many biobased greases that meet industry standards but are priced the same as mineral oil-based greases.
In the United States, the biobased rail curve greases used by large Class I freight railroads are priced below their mineral oil-based counterparts. Just 15 years ago, the biobased versions were twice as expensive as the mineral oil version of rail curve greases.
But, even for the so called lost-in-use or used-once applications, biobased grease making is fraught with pitfalls. This is because grease making often requires high temperature reactions exceeding 200°C. Furthermore, the hot walls of the reaction vessels are often at much higher temperatures of near 300°C or more. Vegetable oils in general should not be exposed to temperatures of 150°C or higher.
Figure 5: (Left): 48” grease dispensing bar attached to the inside of track to deliver grease to the wheel flange of rail car; (Right): Shows the presence of rail curve grease on the track wheel point of interface
Figure 6: A dual chamber clam shell type wire rope lubricator Courtesy of Lubitec UK
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LUBE MAGAZINE NO.147 OCTOBER 2018
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