Potassium

I would agree that Potassium might come from inhibitors in the cooling water. What is the water content and oil level like? Have you checked the cooling water for oil foam?

If the cooling water is without coolant, you will probably not detect glycol (might detect traces if coolant was used before) with a FT-IR analysis.

What is the copper level at? If you are looking at high levels, you might have a leakage in the cooler..

Or you could add something in the cooling water (that is not harmful for oil, engine or coolingsystem) and look for it in the oil.

Were all the test run at the same time? We had a problem with indications of material that was not in our oil. The lab we use was not performing a sufficient flush prior to running our samples. After doing research we found that they had run EH (Electro Hydraulic) of samples prior to running ours. It took several flushes to remove all the traces of EH additives.

Have the H2O levels increased? If the H2O has not increased and you are not using coolant I would check into how the tests are being run for starters.

Please update us when you find out what it is.

Thanks for the reply Pete....we currently have several trucks that have beed tested at various times during the last few months. There has been no coolant (positive gylchol) nor any increase or noticiable sodium. The engines are not using coolant. (no make up added) This is why this is so odd. The samples indicate "coolant additive" due to the potassium only. No other elements or comtaminates.....very odd.

What is the oil type (brand name). I might have a potasium level to compare with.

We have noticed the same thing on a particular make of engine. I did quite a lot of research to try and find out what it could be and all I could come up with was the possibility of it being something like Fuller's earth that is coming through to the oil. Fuller's earth (alum etc.) is chemically aluminium ptassium sulphate which would explain the aluminium and potassium levels.
We have only found it with a particular make of engine and appears to be when the engines are new and often goes away with age. Have the levels dropped over time? Are all the engines that have this problem the same make and model? We have tried to get an aswer from the OEM but have had no luck.

Thanks for the reply..the potassium levels have been showing up around 500 hours of service and never going away. Some engines have as high as 2,500 hours with this problem....but no failures. The engines are identical as engines in other equipments. The only difference is these engines have air compressors. We have had a few compressors failing. Is there any place I can learn more about "Fullers earth? I know of the connection between aluminium and silcon but have not heard of Fuller's earth.

Fuller's Earth is a generic term. A more common name would probably be Pot ash or Soda ash. It is used as a water softener and also as a dehydrater. The other line of thought is that the potassium, aluminium could be present in our samples due to an assembly grease/compound. Seeing you are having compressor failures check to see if Aluminium potassium sulphate, (chemical term for pot ash), is present as a dehydrater in the compressor filters.

Michelle,
Thanks!! I'll look into it.

Bill,
Any more info or news on where the potassium is coming from?
Michelle.

Michelle,
Nothing yet......I will let you know.....the manufacturer is still looking for coolant.
Thanks......

HI, we are seeing a similar situation with large natural-gas fueled engines: high potassium, which is being attributed to coolant leaks, yet no water is found and there are no coolant leaks we are able to find. Coolant leaks are not unusual in these engines, but there should be other contaminates besides potassium, water and several other hits should occurr, but they don't. When we really have a coolant leak, all the typical suspects show a hit.

Hi, More information.
Some of our guys say that when they have a small leak, Potassium almost always shows up first on the report, before water or glycol. Maybe the test is more sensitive to potassium?
We went into an engine which was noted for showing potassium on the analysis report recently; found several cracked heads, but could not tell if they were leaking coolant yet.

Hi,
I would like to know what type metallic contamination give us the more information about internal problems in marine engines. There is a ratio between metals contents depending the leak or mal function?
Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by Buick8:
Hi, More information.
Some of our guys say that when they have a small leak, Potassium almost always shows up first on the report, before water or glycol. Maybe the test is more sensitive to potassium?
We went into an engine which was noted for showing potassium on the analysis report recently; found several cracked heads, but could not tell if they were leaking coolant yet.

Hi, has anybody found an answer to this mystery? We have been experiencing the same problem in two of our Cummins diesal engines for the past six months. High potassium and aluminium levels but sodium levels look fine. We had a HACK test carried out on one sample and there was no trace of glycol. All other samples from trucks in the fleet are trending normally.

Hi Crowie,

Is there anything different with these two engines that you can put your finger on? Are they using a different type of filter than the rest of the fleet? Are the rest of the fleet the same make and model? Have they had any recent work done on them just prior to the abnormal levels showing up? We are still trying to get to the bottom of this trend but are no closer to solving it.

Hi Michelle,

The engines are identical and work on all trucks is carried out by on site mechanics except the occassional engine that will be rebuilt by Cummins. There doesn't seem to be any link here. Since all work is done on site everything thing they use is the same, filters, oils etc in all trucks.

We did have a filter tested off one of the trucks. The result was interestng in that the potassium and aluminium levels in the filter were very similar to the levels in the oil sample.

We are starting to think that possibly one of the drivers in putting some sort of additive in to the oil or fuel. We will be taking some fuel samples from these trucks for testing in the next few days. Will let you know if the results show anything.

FYI

We had 3 x diesel samples sent for analysis. One from the diesel fill point and one from each of the effected trucks tanks. The new fuel had no trace of potassium while the two taken from the truck tanks had 2 & 3 ppm potassium.

We now plan to have fuel filters analysised from trucks, and a fuel sample taken from another truck in the fleet to see if it has any potassium level.

Will keep updating with findings.

Has anybody else made any progress on this issue?