The ‘go green’ revolution has impacts many aspects of our lives making us think how, when and why. For most of us it is a lifestyle or business choice to behave in an environment friendly manner and it certainly differs from business to business, person to person and government to government. The common terms that define green are, recyclable, renewable, reusable, energy conserving, waste reducing and less toxic or nontoxic. The main purpose of this white paper is to show that lubricants industry can go green too with the help of planned storage, purchasing, disposal and challenges the government predicts for green lubricants and to reduce energy use for a better sustainable f

The ‘go green’ revolution has impacts many aspects of our lives making us think how, when and why. For most of us it is a lifestyle or business choice to behave in an environment friendly manner and it certainly differs from business to business, person to person and government to government. The common terms that define green are, recyclable, renewable, reusable, energy conserving, waste reducing and less toxic or nontoxic. The main purpose of this white paper is to show that lubricants industry can go green too with the help of planned storage, purchasing, disposal and challenges the government predicts for green lubricants and to reduce energy use for a better sustainable future.

The industry of lubricants is part of the bigger petroleum industry. After the disastrous accidents like the grounding of Exxon Valdez near Alaska and Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in the high profile damage to ecology caused by large amounts of crude oil being spilled in an environment, petroleum has earned a reputation of being the dirty industry. But, in spite of this, this industry has made necessary changes in transportation, production and exploration of new avenues to make better ecofriendly products. Actually, the industry has made many products possible that are accountable for the quality of life appreciated by a growing number of people across the globe.

The word “green” has several synonyms: environmentally acceptable, sustainable and environment-friendly. The main objective of green initiatives is to preserve the resources, reduce pollution and generate less waste.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency comments “Sustainability is very essential for enduring that we have and will have materials, resources and water for protecting the environment and human health”. The United Nations introduced the World Summit in 2005 when it was noted that sustainability needs the understanding of social equity, environmental and economic demands known as “three pillars” of sustainability. The industry began to take environmental issues into consideration with the issues of the economy before the U.N. World Summit in 2005. In summer of 1997, American Chemical Society, Chemical Manufacturers Association, U.S. EPA and other groups supported the Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in Washington.

All these events have also affected the lubricants industry. Lubricants are used in lessening the friction that results in advanced equipment life and a decrease in the consumption of energy. Properly expressed lubricants have a longer life, thus producing less waste. Original equipment manufacturers, government agencies and end users expect the performance, requesting low impact if lubricants are not released in the environment. During the procedure of vehicle design, for instance, lubricant formulations are identified that will decrease the emissions of an engine in vehicles with inner combustion engines. Lubricants can be formulated by using bio-based materials of high performance and prove terms like low toxicity, biodegradable and non-bio accumulative true.

Formulation of Lubricants:

Conventionally, when lubricants were formulated, it had a mixture of two ingredients like additives and oil. For grease, third ingredient i.e. thickener was added. Now a formulation is still carried by the basic mixture, as several natural and synthetic base fluids are used as the lubricant base and not just the petroleum oil. Additives are involved to report the attributes of advantageous performances like corrosion protection, reduced friction, foam & air release, heat removal and water emulsion or separation. U.S. government regulations hamper global lubricant production the most. EPA’s Vessel General Permit of 2013 modification made the National Pollution Discharge and Emission System rules of Clean Water Act. By the description of EPA, environmentally adequate lubricants are minimally toxic, non-bio accumulative and biodegradable.

Universal Sight of Green Lubricants:

The customary environmental lubricant has proved to be formulated from biobased materials or is biodegradable. From the universal point of view, lubricants have become eco-friendly in other ways from several years. Appropriately formulated lubricant is selected for the application, can enhance the efficacy of the equipment. Nowadays, lubricants can be formulated for offering a higher level of performance and protection to equipment.

• Renewable

Petroleum crude oil is a tough non-renewable natural resource. Crude oil is obtained from the rocks and refined into several materials, involving mineral lubricating oils. Theoretically, the natural process can generate oil, for practical purposes it is the limited resource that can run out. nhanced exploration techniques, developed use of hydraulic fracturing and improved recovery processes has increased from the years, whereas population endures growing. Renewable products are harvested and turned into products in a very short period of time. Many of the oils are taken from vegetables and animals, thus, do not harvest stable lubricants.

• Low Ecotoxicity, Biodegradable, Non-Bioaccumulative

The environmentally accepted lubricants were earlier made from biodegradable or biobased materials, whereas many of them were formulated from vegetable based oil fluids. Businesses are supposed to be made by the users while putting these products in service. They can become jelly-like at low temperature and oxidize quickly at the operating temperatures. They were even more expensive than mineral oil counterparts. There were not various laws forcing users for buying them, so only hardcore environmentalists are used. Governments are starting to concentrate on EALs by enacting laws like U.S. EPA VGP laws, finding it difficult for companies to avoid using them. Nowadays, several options are available with the help of high-performance synthetic fluids or genetically improved vegetable oils, so higher performing products can be formulated to consider the high and low-temperature issues of early products. Considering the biodegradability, toxicology has become the part of the requirement for lubricant to be green, where formulators consider the bioaccumulation and ecotoxicity.

Government laws like EPA VGP, are setting the quantifiable requirements for displaying lubricant is an EAL, whereas VGP is the self-certifying program, marketing the based approvals like European Union's Ecolabel, comprising specific test requirements, fees paid for registration, use of approval logo and product formula audits

• Biodegradability

Biodegradability is the measure of persistence or the rate of breakdown of substance with the help of biological activity in the natural environment. Biodegradable products are recognized as inherently or readily biodegradable and are determined by percentage with which they biodegrade to the natural state, on subjecting to water, sunlight and activity of microbes.

• Ecotoxicity

It is the measure of toxicity of the chemical substance to organisms in the environment to provide the indications of chemical that is chronically or acutely toxic to the environment.

• Bioaccumulation

A process through which chemicals are taken up by organisms from the exposure to the contaminated environment or by food consumption containing the chemical. For the bioaccumulative compounds, the main source of movement in and through the aquatic food webs seems to be dietary ingestion instead of the bioconcentration from water due to the compounds exhibiting low water solubility and concentrate in the lipid fractions of biological tissues.

Conclusion:

It is much unexpected, but lubricants can be actually green. Whereas many people are looking at green lubricants like low toxicity, biodegradable and non-bioaccumulative. For instance, the potential for the world-class program of lubrication reliability to lead to energy savings and enlargement of lubricant and life of component are considered as the part of universal sight of what is the meaning of green. The successful implementation will result in enhanced economic, environmental and social sustainability are the three pillars of sustainability.