3 ways to know your oil

Whenever we experience contamination in our oil our instant reaction or resort is to change the lubricant and replace it with a new one. But the question is, is our new oil free from contaminants? Contact Minimac for oil check: +91 7030901266

Lubricants are supplied in two forms i.e. in bulk through tankers and in the packaged form such as steel drums, plastic drums/cans. Both of these options are prone to the risk of lubricant degradation in storage. Let’s understand how to maintain fresh and clean inventory.

1. Product labelling: This is key to avoid any cross-contamination or old stocking of lubricants. A label should reflect the following:

The date container has been opened

Purchase & delivery date of the drum

Product name

Inventory code

Storage location

Min & max inventory levels

2. Inventory management: Minimum and maximum level of the lubricants should be set in order to manage the ordering of the oils to avoid degradation.

3. Product usage: We suggest that lubricants should be used in the same sequence as they are bought i.e. FIFO (First In, First Out).

But even after doing all the above steps it has been observed that sometimes there is water contamination in sealed oil drums due to frequent temperature changes/rain waterlogging on the top of the drums, sometimes there is rust particle contamination due to usage of a recycled drum by the seller. To avoid this even the new oil should be filtered to achieve cleanliness code 14/13/11 as per ISO 4406 to ensure the health of the machines. If you are starting this practice now, we advise you to get your system flushed too to get rid of any varnish/contaminant residue left in the system.

Stage Wise Mechanical Filtration

The first stage is the largest micron rating, i.e. 50 micron or 25 microns. Second stage could be a medium-sized micron rating, maybe 10 or 16 or 20 microns and the final one, polishing filter stage, could be 6, 3 or 1 micron. The decision of micron rating depends on the kind of oil, level of dirt present in the oil and the application where this equipment is used.

Low Vacuum Dehydration

This technique is used for removal of moisture content from the oil, which is present in three forms:

Dissolved

Emulsified

Free form

The technology evolves around the fact that water boiling point is 100℃, when the vapour pressure above the water surface is atmospheric pressure. But when we reduce the vapour pressure to a vacuum condition say 750 torr, it's evident that the boiling point of water reduces from 100℃ to 60℃.

Electrostatic Fluid Cleaning

This calls for electrostatically charged electrodes inside a water bath.

It is a known fact that all foreign particles carry some charge. While we create positive and negative electrodes on the oil bath, the foreign particles which are negatively charged would be attracted towards the positive charged electrode and vice-versa. Thereby, after some interval of oil passage the particles would be attracted towards the respective oppositely charged electrode and a separation of particles happen.

Nitrogen Blanketing

This technique talks about the creation of an inert gas blanket in the header space of oil tanks.It has been seen that the header space of oil tanks, especially in the coastal areas, is full of humid air. This humidity is the biggest concern for oil oxidation and degradation. Hence, dry inert gas blanketing technology enables us to create a dry environment in the header space of these tanks. Having an inert gas ensures absence of oxygen, which would be the key element for oxidation and oil degradation.This technique has enabled a number of governing systems, lube oil systems in the coastal regions and they help them to reduce the problems of oil oxidation and degradation.

We at Minimac Systems Pvt Ltd. not only design a maintenance schedule for the lubrication oil but also provide a range of OIL PURIFICATION SYSTEMS & FLUSHING SYSTEMS. Minimac stands for MINImum MAChinery Maintenance.