ExxonMobil Chemical
A new high-viscosity solution for today's challenges
By Michael P. Sheehan, Marketing Technical Services, ExxonMobil Chemical Company | TLT CMF Plus November 2016
Lubricant formulators struggle with significant challenges today. The needs of the marketplace are evolving — driven, in large part, by increasingly stringent Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) requirements, governmental regulations and global energy conservation initiatives. As a result of these changes, today’s automotive and industrial lubricants must offer unprecedented performance capabilities.
They must satisfy the growing demands for energy efficiency, fuel economy and minimized emissions. They also must provide more robust protection to extend machine life and run-time under ever more severe operating conditions, as OEMs continue to create equipment with smaller sumps and with higher output and energy density.
Despite handling higher temperatures and more extreme conditions, lubricants are now expected to last longer. Industrial and commercial customers want longer drain intervals to help them boost productivity while minimizing waste and the costs of maintenance and product replacement. Many of today’s lubricants also need to meet evolving global regulations for food contact.
A vital solution
To overcome these challenges, formulators must innovate. And to support their innovation, they need advanced, technical solutions. They need base stocks that can contribute both blending flexibility and high-performance capabilities. That’s why ExxonMobil Chemical has introduced a new high-viscosity product to their renowned portfolio of synthetic base stocks — SpectraSyn Elite™ 300 metallocene polyalphaolefin (mPAO).
As the industry’s only 300 cSt mPAO base stock, SpectraSyn Elite 300 augments the formulators’ toolbox by providing a new high-viscosity base stock for formulating industrial and automotive lubricants, as well as greases. Laboratory tests show SpectraSyn Elite™ 300 mPAO can help enable formulators to develop products that capitalize on the enhanced properties of mPAO while offering lower treat rates and better viscosmetric properties than alternative high-viscosity base stocks.
Because of its impressive versatility, SpectraSyn Elite 300 also gives formulators the ability to blend the complete spectrum of ISO VG grades of industrial oils with a single base stock. This versatility simplifies the process — as well as base stock product inventory — while allowing formulators the flexibility to create the innovative products that are essential for their customers today.
High-performance characteristics
Compared to other high-viscosity base stocks, SpectraSyn Elite 300 delivers outstanding characteristics, to help formulators achieve necessary levels of performance. It offers enhanced film thickness that enables wear protection, which can provide improved durability in industrial and automotive applications.
The excellent low-temperature fluidity of SpectraSyn Elite 300, coupled with its high viscosity index (VI), can help deliver wear protection during cold-weather start-ups. It can also broaden the operating range by providing enhanced film thickness at higher temperatures, which may contribute to equipment efficiency, reliability and service life.
Additionally, the good shear stability of SpectraSyn Elite 300 helps finished lubricants stay in grade longer, maintaining crucial protection even under severe conditions. This can help keep equipment running longer.
Formulation advantages
SpectraSyn Elite™ 300 mPAO achieved the lowest pour points (ASTM 5950), when compared with other high-viscosity base stocks. (
Figure 1). Thus, SpectraSyn Elite 300 is a new solution as today’s equipment builders seek lubricants with excellent low-temperature properties that can contribute to improved energy efficiency. Because today’s equipment builders seek lubricants with good low-temperature properties that allow for energy efficiency, the pour-point results show how SpectraSyn Elite 300 can help fill a critical need.
Base stocks that can deliver excellent shear stability can be very useful to formulators, who want their finished lubricants to maintain viscosity and stay in grade for longer service life. ExxonMobil Chemical used the Taper Roller Bearing test (CEC-L-45-A-99) at 20 and 100 hours to measure this capability in SpectraSyn Elite 300 and found that, along with SpectraSyn Elite™ 150, SpectraSyn Elite 300 performed better than other high-viscosity base stocks tested, especially when the test was extended from 20 to 100 hours (
Figure 2).
SpectraSyn Elite 300 demonstrated enhanced performance in EHL film thickness testing at 80 and 120 degrees Celsius, SpectraSyn Elite 300 demonstrated step-out performance, far surpassing the other high-viscosity base stocks tested (
Figure 3). Formulators seeking to blend lubricants that supply wear protection under extreme conditions can benefit from the film thickness properties of SpectraSyn Elite 300.
Application versatility
The high VI of SpectraSyn Elite 300 translates into formulated lubricants. As the base stock is formulated into ISO VG industrial gear oils, the resulting viscosity index surpassed other high-viscosity base stocks tested (
Figure 4). High VI can help enhance energy efficiency, equipment reliability and life, lubricant durability and protection at high and low temperatures — critical capabilities in today’s marketplace, especially for industrial lubricants.
Additionally, SpectraSyn Elite™ 300 mPAO has demonstrated that its excellent low-temperature performance provides improved pumpability, while resisting water washout in industrial grease formulations. It displayed superior water washout performance (ASTM D12) versus low molecular weight PIBs in ISO VG 100 and 460 greases, retaining its ability to protect even in aqueous environments (
Figure 5).
The extreme conditions of many industrial applications challenge the limits of lubrication — more now than ever before. That’s why equipment builders and plant operators demand durability and high performance. SpectraSyn Elite 300 helps formulators meet these challenges.
For formulating automotive lubricants, SpectraSyn Elite 300 also can be a valuable blending option for formulators as a high-viscosity component in 5W-30 and 0W-20 SAE grade formulations. In ASTM D5293 (CCS @ -30°C) and ASTM D4683 (HTHS @ 150°C) viscosity tests, SpectraSyn Elite 300 posted the highest HTHS (high temperature high shear) and the lowest CCS (cold-cranking simulator) of synthetic base stocks tested, while furnishing the lowest treat rate (
Figure 6). These tests demonstrate the new product’s capabilities at both high and low temperatures, as well as its stability under high-stress conditions.
Enabling innovation
SpectraSyn Elite 300 offers formulators a new, high-viscosity, high-performance base stock to help meet many of today’s challenging requirements. It provides formulators with blending flexibility to develop innovative lubricants, while reducing the need for costly additives. Through unsurpassed high-viscosity capabilities, SpectraSyn Elite 300 enables the innovation necessary for formulators to satisfy the requirements of equipment builders and the needs of their customers.
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Source of test results/product information: ExxonMobil data