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البحـث الأول
مجلة النفط والتعاون العربي
161
العدد
- 2017
أربعون
المجلد الثالث و ال
2016
أوابك العلمية لعام
�
ص لبحوث العلمية الفائزة بجائزة
�
عدد خا
23
13
Chapter 1 - History of Lubrication and Re-refining
Lubricats are known to human activity ever since man invented machines. Before
the modern age of petroleum, which started in 1859, lubricants were either made
from animal fat or vegetable oil
18
.
Petroleum based lubricants were a byproduct of refining crude oil to get kerosene
for lighting and later gasoline for the upcoming motor industry
48
. The processing
of petroleum based lubricants moved forward by 1880
1
as the quality and
performance of the products proved its superiority. Solvent refining was
developed in the 1920s. The US Society of Aoutomotive Engineers started in
1923 to classify engine oils according to their viscocity
when engine oils
contained no additives and had to be changed every 800 to 1000 miles
1
. Around
the same time, lubricants manufacturers started using clay treatment, acid
treatment and sulphur dioxide treatment to “remove some of the undesirable
components such as aromatic and highly polar compounds containing sulphur and
nitrogen”
1
.
Later additives to inhibit oxidation, resist corrosion, enhance pour points,
improve viscosity index, and more emerged in the 1930s
18
and their use increased
thereafter to this day. The addi
tives were found necessary “to prolong the
performance and service life of automotive engine oils”
18
as proved by systematic
oil analysis and performance testing.
In the 1950s, synthetic lubricants were developed for the aviation and aerospace
industries and multigrade automotive engine oils were introduced by the
development of viscosity improvers
18, 48
.
The development of hydro-treating technology for petroleum products was
developed in the 1950s and used for the improvement of lube oil stocks in the
1960s
1
for further purification of base oils.
Catalytic dewaxing and wax hydro-isomerization technologies were
commercialized in the 1970s to improve middle distillates. But in 1993, an
improved version was used to improve pour point of the base oil
1
by transforming
the wax in lube oil cuts into high quality base oil instead of removing the wax by
the more classical dewaxing processes.