Assassin
Well-Known Member
Its a simple question, would you use second hand oil in your engines?
Most used oil is collected and recycled by burning it as cheap fuel for intense and prolonged heat applications such as cement making for example, but what most people never realise is that oil and its additives actually do not wear out when used in most applications as it actually deteriorates in use by becoming contaminated mainly through the acids and other compounds produced during the combustion process and by the inclusion of solid particles such as soot from use in diesel engines.
Engine oil specifications stated by the manufacturer are not the specifications of the oil before it is used in an engine as they are the specifications at the end of its life when it has run its amount of cycles or hours in marine applications, or mileage in road vehicles such as cars and lorries and is replaced as part of a service schedule.
So, if we take old oils and remove the solid particles and remove the acidic and other compounds then it is perfectly serviceable and can be used indefinitely then? in a word yes; and if we look at the huge marine engines used in larger ships such as container ships we see the "filled for life" engines are actually in current service and many have the inbuilt capability to filter out these solid particles and neutralise the acidic and other compounds to the point where by doing this on a constant cycle, the oil will outlast the engine by several times. Why aren't we doing this? in point of fact we already are and currently around 10% of all oil is sent for recycling into new oils is sent for reblending and is used mainly in gearbox applications such as high capacity gearboxes in harsh working conditions as there are conflicting messages from the oil industry who have a huge financial stake in finding oil reserves and extracting crude and selling it on for profit; and the oil recycling industry who can cut the cost of engine and other oils by using old oils and while they have the additional costs of additional filtration, they don't have to pay market or spot prices for crude oil as filtering is a much lower cost than refining crude oil.
Didn't companies such as Silkolene in Belper do this for years? yes they did so its not new technology and has been around for decades, so if Silkolene did it for decades before being bought out by Fuchs then why aren't we doing it now? in a word MONEY and perception. For many years small reblenders of oils have had it all their own way by rerefining used oils and this was a small or niche market as people believed the hype and tosh spouted by the huge oil corporations in their attempts to preserve and protect their huge profits; but times are a changing with the support of recycling and the information these people are putting out.
What is the process? basically its no different to the refining of crude oil except for the additional filtration process at the beginning of the refining process as this needs to be better than the original filtration processes of new oils as all refining does is remove as much of the solid matter as possible and they do this in many ways as the purer the base oil is determines its quality and classification as a base oil as the finer it is, the purer it is, and the smaller and more uniform the molecules are, the better quality it is. Therefore, standard refining processes and equipment can be used to reblend old oils into new oils with minimal outlay and investment.
Most used oil is collected and recycled by burning it as cheap fuel for intense and prolonged heat applications such as cement making for example, but what most people never realise is that oil and its additives actually do not wear out when used in most applications as it actually deteriorates in use by becoming contaminated mainly through the acids and other compounds produced during the combustion process and by the inclusion of solid particles such as soot from use in diesel engines.
Engine oil specifications stated by the manufacturer are not the specifications of the oil before it is used in an engine as they are the specifications at the end of its life when it has run its amount of cycles or hours in marine applications, or mileage in road vehicles such as cars and lorries and is replaced as part of a service schedule.
So, if we take old oils and remove the solid particles and remove the acidic and other compounds then it is perfectly serviceable and can be used indefinitely then? in a word yes; and if we look at the huge marine engines used in larger ships such as container ships we see the "filled for life" engines are actually in current service and many have the inbuilt capability to filter out these solid particles and neutralise the acidic and other compounds to the point where by doing this on a constant cycle, the oil will outlast the engine by several times. Why aren't we doing this? in point of fact we already are and currently around 10% of all oil is sent for recycling into new oils is sent for reblending and is used mainly in gearbox applications such as high capacity gearboxes in harsh working conditions as there are conflicting messages from the oil industry who have a huge financial stake in finding oil reserves and extracting crude and selling it on for profit; and the oil recycling industry who can cut the cost of engine and other oils by using old oils and while they have the additional costs of additional filtration, they don't have to pay market or spot prices for crude oil as filtering is a much lower cost than refining crude oil.
Didn't companies such as Silkolene in Belper do this for years? yes they did so its not new technology and has been around for decades, so if Silkolene did it for decades before being bought out by Fuchs then why aren't we doing it now? in a word MONEY and perception. For many years small reblenders of oils have had it all their own way by rerefining used oils and this was a small or niche market as people believed the hype and tosh spouted by the huge oil corporations in their attempts to preserve and protect their huge profits; but times are a changing with the support of recycling and the information these people are putting out.
What is the process? basically its no different to the refining of crude oil except for the additional filtration process at the beginning of the refining process as this needs to be better than the original filtration processes of new oils as all refining does is remove as much of the solid matter as possible and they do this in many ways as the purer the base oil is determines its quality and classification as a base oil as the finer it is, the purer it is, and the smaller and more uniform the molecules are, the better quality it is. Therefore, standard refining processes and equipment can be used to reblend old oils into new oils with minimal outlay and investment.
