Turkish lubricant marketers are preparing for new government regulations that mandate including rerefined base stocks in the manufacture of finished lubricants and that also requires lube marketers to collect waste oil – steps meant to align with European Union environmental protections.

Perstorp declared force majeure on April 12 for supply of pentaerythritol mono and related materials, citing a pressure vessel leak that halted some operations at Perstorp Chemicals GmBH’s Plant C in Bruchhausen, Germany. Among the materials affected are two chemicals used in production of lubricants.

Researchers at an Austrian university have found lubricating properties in a two-dimensional nanomaterial, mXene, they announced last week. The material, pronounced “maxene,” can be used as a lubricant even under extreme temperature conditions. The group from the Vienna University of Technology, or TU Wien, worked alongside teams from Saarland University in Germany, Purdue University in the United States and the Universidad de Chile in Chile.