Shell Lubricants: innovation in lubricants addressing environmental challenges

Shell’s lubricants¹ businesses - the world’s leading marketer of branded lubricants²  - take their commitment to being part of a wider Shell response to environmental concerns seriously. Utilising technology and innovation to tackle broad environmental issues is a core element of the Shell Lubricants customer offer and an important measure of differentiation from the competition.

As well as five technology centres around the world dedicated to lubricants research, we have an extensive network of technical experts whose work ranges from research and development, through to product application specialist advice and front line technical support to customers. We are able to consistently leverage our global scale, our technologies and our product innovations to the advantage and benefit of our customers locally.

Shell Lubricants are developing and implementing new technologies and integrating existing technologies to provide cleaner and more efficient lubricants that deliver innovative solutions to customers facing challenges such as engine efficiency, environmental impact and operating in extreme conditions. These solutions are available across a range of sectors, not just automotive and transport but also metalworking, engineering and manufacturing, power generation and food processing, to name a few.

We work with customers to tackle some of the environmental issues at the forefront of their businesses. Some of the benefits they experience by using Shell Lubricants products include reduced maintenance cycles, longer life from components, more plant ‘up-time’ and importantly, using less energy to run their machines. Customers have found that, using the right products can deliver both cost savings and environmental benefits such as reduced energy consumption and reduced CO₂ emissions.

Research and evaluation of products in the laboratory and in the field shows how using the right lubricant can have a positive impact on the fuel efficiency and overall environmental impact of a range of industrial activities and deliver operators bottom-line benefits.  I shall focus below upon these applications.

Worm gears turn at cleaner pace
Transmitting power and motion at right angles - for example in escalators, conveyor drives, mechanical control and steering systems - has the potential to create considerable friction. The greater the friction the less energy efficient the operation of worm gears becomes. Lubricating worm gears is therefore a specialist undertaking requiring high performance products.

Considering its customers’ needs, Shell Lubricants recently upgraded the formulation of its Tivela S worm gear fluid which resulted in an even more energy efficient, higher performing oil with a longer lifetime and superior wear protection.

Tests of Tivela S showed that the friction co-efficient was about one-third that of a mineral gear oil and about half that of a polyalphaolefin (PAO) synthetic gear oil. This means that new Tivela S delivers 4-5% greater energy efficiency on average over the previous formulation. In endurance tests, new Tivela S also provided superior protection with zero pitting in gear teeth compared with 15-50% when competitor fluids were used and its thermal and oxidative stability reduced sludge formation.

And in use, customers have reported benefits from the product’s longer life-time and superior protection properties. For example, an elevator gearbox company in India has commented that using Tivela S in their worm gearboxes produced energy saving of 10% and also resulted in a 5ºC reduction in oil temperature.

Tivela S is now recommended or listed by over 50 original equipment manufacturers worldwide.

Improving energy consumption in hydraulic systems
Development of hydraulic fluids has, in the past, tended to focus on protecting the hydraulic pump, typically the most expensive component of a hydraulic system. Shell has taken a more holistic approach and identified how energy losses, across the entire hydraulic system, can be reduced through improved lubrication.

A series of tests on a new fluid were carried out in Shell’s research laboratories and then field-tested with more than 160 customers in Japan, mainly using large plastic injection moulding machines. The new fluid was designed to require less energy to pump the fluid around the hydraulic system than conventional mineral-oil based hydraulic fluids.

The research and field trials showed that the new ‘energy efficient’ hydraulic oil has the potential to last significantly longer than conventional mineral oil hydraulic fluids; providing excellent component protection and keeping the system cleaner for longer.

The most significant result however, related to energy saving: across the customer trials, an average energy saving of 8% was recorded, a typical saving equivalent to 16 tons of CO2 per machine per year. Given that electricity consumption per machine was some 70,000kWh/month, this was a remarkable result with a significant financial benefit to the customers. As an added bonus, the trial demonstrated that with the longer lasting and smoother lubrication, customers’ machines were operating faster, pushing production figures up beyond what was previously the norm.

Further trials are now taking place globally.  As the results of these trials become known, there is the potential that over time, more customers of hydraulic fluids will consider a move to an ‘energy efficient’ hydraulic fluid, as a means of saving energy and reducing their carbon footprint.

Lubrication for alternative energy providers
Although the contribution of renewables to worldwide energy output is currently small in absolute terms, the rate of growth of this industry is remarkable. In the area of wind turbines, annual growth rates stand at some 25% with onshore and offshore development being pursued all over the world.

The wind turbines are huge – typically standing up to 110m high with a rotor span of 100m and with massive installations like rotors, gearboxes and generators each producing 2-3 megawatts of electricity. The challenge for turbine and component manufacturers, wind farm operators and service companies, is to ensure that the equipment is working reliably and requires minimal maintenance. This is a complex technical challenge as the windmills sit on top of high columns that move in the wind, and many have to withstand both very high and very low temperatures, salt-laden winds and rain.

Shell has been working on the development of specialist lubricants and greases to suit hostile conditions for many years and offers gear oil, hydraulic fluid and grease designed to meet the demands of wind turbines.

For example, in wind turbine blade bearings Shell Rhodina BBZ grease is designed to withstand very low temperatures (down to –50 °C) and has improved corrosion protection qualities. Formulated using experience gained from greases for helicopter rotors, it is already building up an excellent track record with both customers and major wind turbine manufacturers.

Extending the time between lubricants changes is particularly important for operations involving hostile environments and difficult-to-access applications. For the hydraulic systems within a turbine, Shell Tellus TX not only meets the demands of the operating environment, but also gives increased oil life due to improved resistance to viscosity loss. The stable properties of the product allowed one operator in the Netherlands to extend hydraulic changeover from six months to over 2 years, reducing the need to stop for servicing and showing considerable savings across those turbines that switched to Tellus TX.

Shell’s Omala HD gearbox fluid offers superb performance in tough conditions, making it well suited to use in wind turbines. Compared to conventional mineral oils Omala HD offers up to four times the extended oil life, allowing extended intervals between maintenance, and gives up to 15% reduction in energy loss. Also, Omala HD gives excellent wear protection and resists micro-pitting wear on gear teeth, helping to extend the life of gearbox components and prolong operation.
 
By supplying high quality gear and hydraulic oils and blade bearing greases, Shell is offering the best possible protection to wind turbine technology, limiting downtime and maintenance and helping to ensure the future efficiency of one key source of renewable energy.

Total lubrication solutions
As well as supporting industrial and engineering uses, Shell lubricants products that deliver such energy efficiency and environmental benefits are available for other operations, such as running and management of transport and sales fleets.  We know, for example, that by optimising the use of lubricants in a vehicle’s engine, energy and fuel efficiency can be improved by up to 5%. As an average car is estimated to produce 3 tonnes of CO₂ per year a 5% efficiency gain would equate to a reduction of up to 0.15 tonnes of CO₂ per car per year.  

One popular service we provide to the fleet sector is Shell LubeClinic, a quick on the spot oil testing facility aimed at fleets that can be used to constantly monitor the condition of oils and engines enabling optimum operation that lead to efficiency gains. 

High quality lubricants products have the potential to make positive contributions to environmental impact and energy efficiency across the range of manufacturing, transport and industrial and power generation sectors.  At Shell Lubricants, we are committed to investment in technology combined with long-term collaboration with customers to deliver lubrication solutions for global issues wherever they are required.

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^1. The term ‘Shell Lubricants’ collectively refers to Shell companies engaged in the lubricants business. The Shell companies that deal in lubricants are global leaders in finished lubricants and Shell lubricants products are marketed in approximately 120 countries worldwide. They manufacture and blend products for use in a range of applications from consumer motoring to food processing and heavy industry to commercial transport.
^2. Source Kline, ‘Competitive Intelligence from the Global Lubricants Industry, 2006-2016.’