What Are the Advantages of lube base oils？

To start, crude oil goes through two distillation processes: Atmospheric and vacuum distillation. After the second distillation, base oils go through a thorough analysis to make sure they have the right test results on important characteristics. Viscosity, volatility and oxidation stability are a few examples of key base oil features. Eventually we have base oils that are ready for the process of blending with additives. This will be discussed in the next chapter.

Distillation is the process of physically separating substances, like liquids and vapours, accelerated by high temperatures. At atmospheric distillation, crude oil is heated up to a temperature of about 400°C. The heat accelerates the diffusion of crude oil into a separation of liquids and vapours in the distillation tower. As liquid is heavier in weight, it stays more down the bottom of the tower while the vapours rise more to the top.

A few fractions can be refined from heated crude oil and are even ready for use (e.g. gases), but only base oils go through a second distillation. The second distillation process takes place in a vacuum setting, enabling to obtain distillates with high boiling points on lower temperatures with, eventually, base oils as the end-product.

Base oils can be segmented into 2 main groups, according to the used treatments:
 

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• Mineral base oils, group I and II, are base oils refined from crude oil
• Synthetic base oils, group III, which are mineral base oils refined through hydrocracking*, and group IV and V, which are oils purely generated by synthetic or chemical processes

*Hydrocracking mineral base oils means cracking heavy, high-sulfur molecules of the oils into better quality, low-sulfur molecules under high temperature and pressure.  

Synthetic base oils are generated by certain chemical processes that make them perform better thanks to their consistent molecular structure and purity. Because of the consistent size and shape of the molecules and the adherence between them, there will be less friction between the metal surfaces and a significant overall better performance. 

There is a general trend, mostly driven by environmental norms and specifications, towards better quality synthetic base oils. Technical evolutions of the past decade brought engine designs that require more sophisticated oil formulations. In the past, you could use mineral base oils for basically every type of engine, but the newest engine designs no longer support this type of oil.

At Wolf, we mostly work with synthetic base oils as they show a significantly better performance on all characteristics. This counts also for mineral base oils that went through a chemical refinery process (hydrocracking), like synthetic Group III base oils.

The benefits of synthetic base oils:

• Improved fuel economy and power output
• More resistant to temperature fluctuations and oxidation processes
• Cleaner engine surfaces
• Superior wear control
• Increased drain interval to the finished lubricant

However, some vehicles still work perfectly with mineral base oils. What matters most is to know about the differences in oil and to make sure you use the right lubricant for your specific vehicle. Use our online recommendation tool to find out which oil fits your vehicle needs.

 

In short:

• Base oils can be refined from crude oil or generated by chemical processes
• There are 2 types of base oils: Mineral and synthetic base oils
• There a number of important characteristics to consider when deciding on base oils, like viscosity and oxidation stability
• In the future, the demand for synthetic base oils will increase

For more explanation about these lubricant terms, download our whitepaper with 51 lubricant related terms.

Petroleum-based mineral oils function very well as lubricants in probably 90 percent of industrial applications. They are cost-effective and provide a reasonable service life if used properly but have some limitations, depending upon the specific type of base stock used, the refining technology, the type and level of additives blended, and the operating conditions encountered. The main service difficulties within mineral oils are:

1.   The presence of waxes, which can result in poor flow properties at low temperature.

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2.   Poor oxidation stability at continuously high temperatures, which can lead to sludge and acid buildup.

3.   The significant change in viscosity as the temperature changes, which can cause the base oil to thin excessively at high temperature.

4.   A practical maximum high-temperature application limit of about 125 degrees C (250 degrees F) above which the base oil oxidizes very rapidly. It is desired to keep mineral oil-based lubricants within the operating range of 40 to 65 degrees C (100 to 150 degrees F).

Synthetic base oils are expensive because of the processing involved in creating these pure chemical base oils. Their use must justify the additional cost. There should be a financial benefit to using them.

With regard to their chemical purity, think of the analogy of a container of balls. Mineral oil would be like having the container filled with many different balls of different shapes and sizes, such as footballs, baseballs, tennis balls, ping-pong balls, soccer balls, golf balls, etc.

Mineral oils contain thousands, if not millions, of different chemical structures (molecules). A synthetic oil would be the equivalent of having the container filled with just one type of ball (tennis balls). Every structure in the container of synthetic oil is almost identical to the structure beside it.

The two main advantages of synthetic oils are their ability to outperform mineral oils at high operating temperatures (above 185 degrees F) and at low operating temperatures (below 0 degrees F). There are other potential advantages, too.

Depending on the type of synthetic, other advantages of synthetic lubricants (beyond the high- and low-temperature advantage) may include:

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