Lubricants

Challenge

Sustainability of lubricants is moving beyond efficiency improvement of engines and hydraulics to full life cycle impact

Sustainability has become an increasingly important topic in the lubricant industry. Although these oils are used to reduce energy consumption and to extend the lifetime of machinery, they have a reputation of being unsustainable. Their traditional petrochemical origin and resulting carbon footprint has stimulated innovation for alternative, more sustainable lubricants.

Conventional lubricants put pressure on the environment

Fossil fuel depletion

Global oil consumption accounts for 4.7 billion tons per year, of which approximately 40 million tons of lubricants are used

Environmental impact

Without proper disposal procedures in place, 50% of all lubricants used worldwide end up in the environment

Aquatic life

Around 1 million tons of lubricant ends up as spillage in marine environments or as waste in landfills

PRODUCTS

X-Craft® 68, X-Craft® 5, X-Craft® 6 & X-Craft® 7

Biobased fatty acids in combination with biobased polyols can be used to create polyol esters, suitable to produce fully biobased lubricants. In addition, biobased fatty alcohols can be used to produce a range of different base oils and additives.

ChainCraft offers X-Craft^® 68, a unique medium-chain fatty acid (MCFA) blend composed of more than 90% caproic acid (C6) combined with heptanoic acid (C7) and caprylic acid (C8). Making it ideal for applications requiring a sustainable and economic building block for polyol ester production with an average sidechain length of over 6 carbons.

Other products include fully fractionated fatty acids such as X-Craft^® 5 (valeric acid), X-Craft^® 6 (caproic acid), X-Craft^® 7 (heptanoic acid) and X-Craft^® 8 (caprylic acid) with a purity of more than 98% to serve specific formulations that require refined MCFA’s.

In addition, our purified fractionated fatty acids allow for the production of high purity n-butanol and n-hexanol. These are ideal precursors to produce biobased sustainable base oils and additives.

How ChainCraft can help lower the carbon footprint

Chaincraft’s extensive fatty acid-based portfolio developed by our proprietary chain elongation technology provides leading lubricant innovators many opportunities for development of unique new and sustainable solutions.

Polyol esters developed from MCFA’s such as caproic acid, result in lubricants with low viscosity, low pour points, high thermal and oxidative stability. Moreover, excellent biodegradability and good deposit control can be expected, while offering the potential for ECO-label classification.

Biobased fatty acids and alcohols produced from stable, low-cost feedstocks such as organic waste also provide a more secure and economic supply towards the future.

Get in touch with our expert

Please contact Jeroen van Dorp if you would like to sample these products or for more information.