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Vegetable oils provide green performance

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Dec 4, 2002

Vegetable oils are not only more environmentally friendly than conventional mineral oils but can bring substantial benefits in terms of technical and cost performance.

Shell Metalworking Europe has developed a new range of vegetable oils, which are not only more environmentally friendly than conventional mineral oils, but can bring substantial benefits in terms of technical and cost performance, compared to other conventional products.

Shell has used the natural characteristics of vegetable oil to develop and formulate a full range of neat vegetable metalworking oils, which can cover both removal and non-removal applications.

The new range has been developed to improve application productivity and final product quality, as well as meeting health and safety guidelines and environmental legislation.

For example, tests have shown that by using neat vegetable oils, compared to neat mineral oils, overall application productivity can be increased by 5%.

The new range, consists of Shell Macron 803 S-10 VEG, Shell Macron 803 S-20 VEG, Shell Garia 801 S-10 VEG and Shell Garia 801 S-20 VEG.

The Shell Macron range has been formulated for light and medium duty turning, milling, honing, lapping and high speed grinding in a range of materials.

This product range can also be used for the grinding of gears with diamond (CBN) or ceramic grinding wheels.

The Shell Garia range has been formulated for heavy duty turning, milling, honing, deep hole drilling, gear milling, thread cutting and gear grinding operations in a wide range of materials.

This Shell Garia range can also be used for severe non chip removal processes, such as bold drawing and punching.

Comments Peter Turkelboom, Shell Metalworking Europe's Technical and Business Development Director: "Looking back a few years, people used to think only about environmental issues when considering the use of vegetable based fluids, but times are changing.

We have developed a range of vegetable based neat oils, which not only delivers environmental benefits, but also improves technical and total cost performance".

Key properties of the vegetable based neat oils include excellent polarity.

As well as increasing application productivity and final product quality, it also prevents the formation of oil mist.

For example, a company had a Junker high speed-grinding machine, equipped with a hydrostatical filter to separate oil mist from the air.

This company was using a mineral oil and their filter needed maintenance every 10 days for cleaning.

Since the company switched to Shell Macron 803 S-10 VEG oil, the application has less evaporation, mist and drag out level, and lubricant top-up has reduced by 70%.

Additional benefits of the neat vegetable oils, include reduced risk of fire or explosion in or around a machine due to the oil having a higher flash point, and a higher compatibility with human skin due to the oils having a very good TEWL value.

Concludes Peter Turkelboom: "This range of oils demonstrates our expertise in this specialist market and we are currently developing a range of additional products to deliver more tangible benefits to our customers".