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government and that addresses environmental impacts on soil, biodiversity, organic carbon stocks and conservation of natural resources.
[The] Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certificates or certificates of any equivalent or stricter sustainable production scheme demonstrating compliance to any of the following models: identity preserved, segregated, mass balance shall be accepted.
Novvi uses the widely accepted Bonsucro, which is a multi-stakeholder organization to ensure that the claims of sustainability are valid.
Types of Renewable Base Oils There are several renewable base oil technologies to choose from when formulating a renewable lubricant2 • Vegetable oils such as soybean, canola (rapeseed), palm, known at HETG
• Synthetic esters that use fatty acids derived from vegetable oils by saponification, or HEES
• Hydrocarbons that are produced from renewable olefins like farnesene, known as HEPR
• PAG produced from renewable ethylene oxide, also called HEPG.
The choice of which renewable base oil to use is determined by the requirements of the application. Vegetable oils perform well in metalworking fluids and hydraulic applications where there is little heat or cold temperature exposure. Higher or lower temperature applications will need high performance renewable hydrocarbons or esters. Product cost is always a consideration, but the overall cost of ownership should be considered.
For example, shipowners, operators, and regulatory agencies are recognising the benefits of environmentally acceptable lubricants (EALs) in marine applications. In fact, the US EPA requires EAL’s to be used in any ship-board operation that might have ‘oil-to-sea’ interface; those rules are known as the Vessel General Permit (VGP) regulations. Such EALs potentially save an operator thousands of dollars in fines, cleanup costs and downtime, noted Dr. Larry Beaver, VP of R&D for RSC Bio Solutions.3
Beaver
points out that HEPRs can be used in VGP EALs; in fact, there is only one hydrocarbon base oil on the EU ECOLABEL LuSC list4 NovaSpec EL34. 5
that base oil is Novvi’s 24
Environmental Specifications for Renewable Lubricants
Ecolabel 2011 (2015) contained the requirement that lubricants must contain 50% renewable content to be placed on the Ecolabel Approval List. Vegetable oils and ester base oils had renewable content determined by counting the carbons in the plant-derived portions of the structure. After the introduction of commercial renewable hydrocarbon base oils, it was recognised that D6866 radiocarbon dating was needed to certify renewable content. There was much debate as to whether Ecolabel 2018 –which will be put into effect as of January 1st, 2020 -- would increase or decrease the renewable content, but in the end, it was decided to only specify the renewable content if “bio-based” was included in the product claims.
“(4b) If the term ‘bio-based’ or ‘bio-lubricant’ is used, the minimum bio-based carbon content in the final product shall be 25 % in accordance with EN 16807.”
The USDA Bio Preferred Program was established to give guidance to governmental agencies as to how to purchase products with renewable content, mandated under Federal and local laws. There are currently over 30 categories for finished lubricants, greases and cleaners and for chemical intermediates like base oils. The minimum renewable content was determined for each category by compiling the renewable content of relevant commercial products and establishing the minimum as just below the product with the lowest renewable content. For lubricant chemical intermediates, the minimum renewable content is 25%. All products must be registered with ASTM and submit D6866 results from an ASTM-approved laboratory.
The Bio Preferred Lubricant categories and the minimum renewable contents can be found here.
https://www.biopreferred.gov/BioPreferred/faces/ pages/ProductCategories.xhtml. Note that other environmental specifications such as EPA Vessel General Permit 2013 do not require a minimum renewable content. Swedish standard SS155434 requires the minimum renewable content of 25% in accordance with EN 16807 for the lubricant to be called “bio-based”.
Applications for Renewable Lubricants Renewable base oil can be used to formulate renewable lubricants that can perform in any
Continued on page 26 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.153 OCTOBER 2019
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