Europeans take very seriously the environmental impact of various products, including emissions from internal combustion engines used in vehicles and machinery. The European Union has imposed a variety of regulations to ensure a cleaner environment, and OEMs expend a great deal of effort to comply with these regulations in a cost-effective manner. Many companies have found that a methodology called Life Cycle Assessment can be a valuable tool in ensuring they are in compliance and save money in the long run. Although lubricants are a small part of most companies concern with regard to emissions, an LCA on lubricants and lubricating systems can be an important part of a compliance program.
There is a growing demand to assess the environmental, social and economic impacts of business activities, said Ckees van Oijen, senior consultant and researcher at Ivam, a consultancy in the field of sustainability, based at the University of Amsterdam. Ivam performs a variety of analyses, including LCA, that help customers such as producers, institutions and local or national governments to assess the environmental impact of products or processes over their expected life cycle. These studies help these organizations avoid fines or penalties, cut costs by decreasing energy or resource requirements, and improve product quality.
LCA results in concrete suggestions to improve the environmental performance of products or processes at specific points in their life cycle. It also helps determine the most environmentally benign scenario. Ivam found that such assessments are also increasingly interesting for end-users (both business and governmental) as they place increasing emphasis on corporate social responsibility and on sustainable development. In this context, there is also increasing interest to include LCA in labeling programs designed to identify products that are relatively benign to the environment.
National and EU ecolabel projects are voluntary schemes that when combined become influential in stimulating the market to support sustainable innovation, van Oijen said after a September presentation at ACIs European Base Oils and Lubricants conference in Krakow, Poland. The EU began allowing qualifying lubricants to bear its Ecolabel in 2005, and since then 60 types of lubes have been awarded the green smiling flower logo. Most of these products are industrial lubes such as hydraulic oils, greases, chain saw oils, concrete release agents, two-stroke oils and other total loss lubricants.
Lubricants must meet four areas of criteria to qualify for the EUs ecolabel. They must meet minimum thresholds for renewable raw material content – ranging from 25 percent to 60 percent depending on product type. In aquatic toxicity tests they must not score as dangerous to the environment, and they must have low potential to accumulate in living organisms. Finally, they must perform adequately in the applications for which they are designed.
Over 5 million metric tons of lubricants are produced, sold and used in Europe annually, according to Ivam. What LCA measures depends on the goal and scope definition of individual assessments, van Oijen said. An Ivam brochure gives some examples of LCA projects conducted by the organization, such as establishing environmental criteria for waste removal on behalf of the Dutch ministry of the environment or a study for a biocomposites producer on the environmental benefit of using their materials compared to conventional fibers and petrochemical resins. Factoring together the various environmental impacts is still a challenging issue, van Oijen said. In any case, transparency in weighing methodology and partial results is essential.
According to Ivam, EU institutions and regulations about sustainable consumption and production are indeed trying to take into account many types of impacts at every life cycle stage, including the life cycle of lubricants. The same holds true for green public procurement documents both at the EU and the national level. About 50 percent of the lubes in Europe are lost to the environment during use, van Oijen said. Of the remaining amount, approximately 75 percent is collected, and probably 25 percent is illegally burned or removed via sewer and waste water systems. Of the collected lubricants [in Europe], approximately one third are recycled and two thirds burned.
Van Oijen added that a thorough analysis of the environmental load of lubricants should include all phases in the product chain. He is confident that LCA is particularly suitable to perform such an assessment. However, a complete comparison between lubricants that are based on vegetable oil and conventional mineral oil is hampered because the products have been included in very few LCAs.
Whereas mineral, synthetic and bio-lubricants differ considerably in their composition, the eco-toxicological impacts of base oil and additives on a local and regional scale are neglected in most LCA studies. In addition, a full analysis of all life stages is particularly limited by a lack of data on the effects and the fate of lubricants (and their components) when they enter the environment, van Oijen observed.
Several LCA studies have shown that the use of lubricants based on non-renewable mineral oils makes a larger contribution to global warming potential and the depletion of natural resources than the use of lubricants based on oil of renewable, vegetable origin, according to Ivam. The use of lubricants based on vegetable oils results in less depletion of non-renewable, natural resources, less carbon dioxide emissions, a smaller contribution to global warming and less damage to the ozone layer. However, it results in a larger contributions to water pollution – from fertilizers and pesticides – greater contributions to photochemical smog and increased land use (at the expense of food production), van Oijen commented.
At the present time, the EU market for biolubricants is 35,300 tons per year, with potential to reach 10 times that volume and a value of 1.1 billion by the end of this decade, van Oijen told the conference.
Many synthetic biolubes have a number of draw-backs, van Oijen said, including oxidation and thermal stability, compatibility with system components like coatings, seals or filters, hydraulic behavior and forming residues of mineral oil. These weaknesses have to be addressed by formulators as they work to meet OEM technical specifications.
Increasingly lubricants are composed of a mixture of natural or synthetic base oils plus additives, he said. Semi-synthetic lubricants (based on mineral and vegetable base oils) often claim better technical performance and longer life. This may lead to better environment performance and cost reductions by, for example, decreasing wear and energy use, van Oijen said.
In finding a sustainable lubricant for a particular lubrication system, the user (in consultation with a supplier or service provider) should always take into account system requirements and specifications and the compatibility of system components, he contended. Advanced sustainable innovation can only be successful when lubricant producers and OEMs cooperate – and when this cooperation extends even to end-users.
Unfortunately, in most LCA studies, emissions to the environment cannot be assessed due to a lack of information on operational factors. This, in turn, may be due to the confidentiality of product information and the continual development of new lubricants and lubrication systems, van Oijen observed.
LCA can be a useful method for analyzing modern rerefining technologies. Recycling of finished oil and lubricants is preferred instead of using the waste as fuel – for example, in the cement industry. The higher the content of synthetic lubricants, the greater the advantage in recycling compared to burning, van Oijen said. One possible application for recycled bio-lubricants is as concrete release agents. Modern rerefining is profitable, and secondary products can compete, economically as well as in performance, with the primary products. This requires a sophisticated separate collection system for waste oils and lubricants.
End users of lubricants spend more and more time assessing how lubricants can influence their return on investments, according to van Oijen. The price per product volume, OEM product specifications and lubricant delivery time are generally all taken into account, but many hidden expenses are still overlooked, he said. He added that by looking at the total cost of ownership (TCO), all relevant expenses to purchase, use and dispose of the product (or service) can be determined. These expenses include the cost of downtime to change oil, manpower for maintenance and repair, equipment availability and the effect on the life of system components. Furthermore, they include the cost of filters and other system components, the effect of lubricants on energy consumption and waste disposal, and other environmental care issues.
Even though lubricants normally constitute less than 2 percent of total maintenance expenses, they can have a major impact on the TCO for mobile and stationary equipment and installations with moving parts, van Oijen said. Companies can save considerably by purchasing quality products resulting in potential fuel savings of 1 to 3 percent and extended maintenance intervals.
Ivam also found that sustainable lubricants and lubrication systems should meet requirements that are derived from environmental and socioeconomic interests. These include product design fit for use or purpose; decreased lubricant use and longer lubrication and maintenance intervals; and reduced wear, waste, noise and emissions. The environmental and socioeconomic interests also include longer life of lubricants and system components, increased energy-efficiency and use, better possibilities for waste collection and recycling, competitive products, and reduced operating expenses, van Oijen concluded.