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What are lubricants?

Lubricants are substances utilized to reduce friction of movement between surfaces. They can prevent overheating, corrosion and abrasion. They support sustainability by making a significant contribution to the service life of machines and minimizing the energy consumption of the processes.

Regulatory Compliance for Lubricants

REACH

If your lubricant or any of its components is affected by REACH, LAUS offers:

  • all experimental endpoints for your dossier
  • Substance Identity/Sameness for a LoA (Letter of Access)

CLP and ADR

For CLP (“Classification, Labelling and Packaging”) and ADR (“European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road”) LAUS provides relevant studies in the following areas:

  • Physical hazards (flammability, pyrophoric properties, metal corrosivity…)
  • Health hazards (skin and eye irritation and corrosion, genotoxicity)
  • Environmental hazard (aquatic environment, acute and chronic)

Water hazard classification

We perform testing and support you with the classification acc.

Sustainability through Ready Biodegradability

LAUS can confirm environmental sustainability of your lubricant:

  • Sturm Test acc. OECD 301B
    Biodegradability is one of the most important factors in assessing the environmental fate of lubricants. Lubricants get in contact with the aquatic environment and sewage treatment microorganisms, which is the basis for the assessment of aquatic biodegradability.

What are the main properties of lubricants?

Usually lubricants are liquids or semi-liquids, but may be solids or gases or any combination thereof. They typically contain > 90% of base oil (fractions of petroleum called mineral oils) and < 10% additives.

Lubricants are divided into four basic classes:

  1. Oils: Liquid lubricants, e.g. mineral oils, natural oils, synthetics, emulsions, or even process fluids
  2. Greases: Oils, which contain a thickening agent to make them semi-solid, anti-seize pastes and semifluid greases
  3. Dry lubricants: Lubricants, which are used in solid form, bulky solids, paint-like coatings, or loose powders, e.g. graphite
  4. Gases: Usually air, or any gas which will not attack the bearings or decompose.

We determine the following physico-chemical properties:

  • Viscosity and Viscosity index
    Viscosity describes the flow behaviour of a fluid. The viscosity of lubricating oils diminishes as temperature rises and consequently is measured at a given temperature (e.g. 40°C) e.g. with the Pycnometer method (OECD 114).
  • Pour point
    The pour point refers to the minimum temperature at which a lubricant continues to flow. Below the pour point, the oil tends to thicken and to cease to flow freely.
  • Flash point
    The flash point is the minimum temperature at which an oil-vapour-air-mixture becomes inflammable. It is determined by progressively heating the oil-vapour-air-mixture in a standard laboratory receptacle until the mixture ignites e.g. EU-method A. 9
    - Abel-Pensky-Method: Substances with flash point < 40 °C
    - Pensky-Martens-Method: Substances > 40 °C (DIN 51758)

Sustainability and Innovation are the key factors to the success of your products. Let us support you with experimental data on your journey. Contact us for more information.

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