Someone told me that there is no difference between base oil and recycled lube oil. In both the cases we get usable oil only after blending additives in them. I was also told that oil companies blend base oil,recycled oil and proper additives, all the three to get the oil to fulfill the specific requirements in various applications.
What is the truth behind all this, will someone tell.

You have touched a very interesting topic. I have been on a lookout for the answere for quiet a sometime. Can I really know wether the base oil Iam purchasing contains any recycled oil.If yes then Iam pay more price than a pure virgin base oil. This leaves a lot of scope for price manupulation and negotiations at a compromised quality . Is there any test to check such kind of mixing .I would like to join Mr Prabhakar in search for the answere.

I'm not sure about how it is in India but in the US the majority of lube manufacturers that use recycled (re-refined) oil state that on the container. In the US it's environmentally friendly to use recycled.

Mr.Mandar,

I think FTIR is a very good instrument to check in such cases.

Dear Mr KRISHNAKUMAR MENON:

I wish to know that apart from FTIR method is there any other method which can spot test the incoming base oil for adultation . like it could give the percentage of adultrant added as compared to a pure base oil sample . Iam keeping aside FTIR method from point of view of cost and infrastuctural setup.

It is really difficuly task to find the diffence on physical lookout between virgin and scientifically re-re-refined base oils. %Ca,%Cp,%Cn can through some information between two base oils. We should not disregard oil because it is re-refined rather we should look at the merits of the base physical and chemical charecteristics; in that sense testing nitrogen content, in my opinion, is good tool to evaluate base oils. Nitrogen in BOs should be ideally nil but appears in ppm level. Higher the number is inferior quality in terms of thermal and oxidation stability.

KumarTR

Dear KUMARTR
can you elaborate on the nitrogen point . ie what are the limits of classification of the base oils with regards to nitogen content and how to measure nitrogen content . I would also like to know the relation between nitrogen content and quality of base oil

Ideally nitrogen level should be NIL. I am not a chemist and I do not know the relation between nitogen compound and its effects on stablity of base oils. All I know , as an application engineer that nitogen presence is undesirable.
Kumar

If re refined oil is hydro treated it will/could be as good as a GPII oil and as such "finding" it would be of no value since it is a good base stock.

If the re refined oil is just filtered or topped then there maybe metals, a high TAN or
oxidation products that a FTIR test may show all of which will not be in a good virgin base oil.

Bruce CLS

I THINK you are asking about to know the orignal mixed/contamenation in your oil, if so then there are a lot of physical techniques available you might send a more clear quistion and may be i can help you in this regard.

quote:

Originally posted by mandar:
Dear Mr KRISHNAKUMAR MENON:

I wish to know that apart from FTIR method is there any other method which can spot test the incoming base oil for adultation . like it could give the percentage of adultrant added as compared to a pure base oil sample . Iam keeping aside FTIR method from point of view of cost and infrastuctural setup.

Steel Pipe
stainless steel pipe