SECTOR FOCUS: RENEWABLE BASE OILS


Insights about Renewable Base Oils


Paula Vettel,


Technical Director Formulations and Regulatory and


Bill Downey,


Sr. Vice President, Business Development, Novvi LLC


You’ve probably been reading about renewable lubricants and wondered what all the fuss is about. Can there really be high performance renewable lubes that I can use in my equipment? Here is information to keep you informed of new developments and help you decide what to use.


Definition


Renewable lubricants are comprised of raw materials, mostly base stocks that are derived from natural sources. These can be either plant-based or animal- based, although most commercial materials are plant-based. Today, the most common sources are vegetable oils or esters based on vegetable oil products. More recent is the introduction of new hydrocarbon base oils, derived biosynthetically from sugar, and polyalkylene glycol (PAG) base oils made from renewable ethylene oxide, which comes from plant-based ethanol.


22 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.153 OCTOBER 2019


While it is obvious that certain base oils come from renewable sources, the official method of determining renewable content is the radiocarbon dating method ASTM D6866 and related methods1


. These methods


measure the amount of carbon that is less than five years old, which is regarded as ‘renewable’. This is an unequivocal way to prove that you have a renewable base oil source.


Many customers will have concerns about whether a plant-based oil comes from an environmentally responsible source. Ecolabel 2018 Criteria 4 states: “(a) In the specific case of renewable ingredients from palm oil or palm kernel oil, or derived from palm oil or palm kernel oil, 100 % w/w of the renewable ingredients used shall meet the requirements for sustainable production of a certification scheme that is a multi-stakeholder organisation with a broad membership, including NGOs, industry and


Continued on page 24


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72