Tuesday, December 01, 2020

Inventions & Profiles in automotive Industry- Discovery of "SYNTHETIC" oils

SYNTHETIC HISTORY:


Long before man discovered petroleum oil, rendered animal fat, whale oil and vegetable oil were used as lubricants. These oils can be considered the first synthetic oils because they were man-made from ingredients in his environment. It wasn't until the 1860's that petroleum oil became a popular lubricant.

In the 1930's, Standard Oil of Indiana perfected the process of synthesizing high-quality lubricating oil from biological compounds such as animal fat and plant seed oil. Even though this new oil was a terrific lubricant, its value was offset by its high cost. Subsequently, the formulas were shelved and began to gather dust in the archives of the U.S. patent office.

During World War II, the U.S. successfully cut off Germany from the rich oil reserves of the Arabian countries. The plan was to starve Hitler of petroleum, a most necessary ingredient for any war machine to function. Without gas and oil, Hitler's army would come to a screeching halt. Gasoline wasn't necessary, because the military tanks and hardware could be retuned to run on alcohol made from corn and other forms of biomass. But there was still a need for lubricating oils.

Using information gained from the archives of the U.S. patent office, Hitler put his best scientific minds to work to produce oils from alcohol and natural gas. Soon, the wheels of his army's machinery as well as his aircraft engines were lubricated by high-quality manmade oils. Rommel was running circles around the U.S. Army because his tanks had superior lubricants and could easily withstand the rigors of the desert heat.

When our troops overtook Hitler's army, they often found Nazi military jeeps and VWs left behind with a rock wedged against the accelerator pedal. The Germans didn't have time to destroy the vehicles and thought that the engines would blow up if left running at full throttle. But because of the incredible synthetic lubricants that were used, the engines merely ran until the fuel tank was empty and died. Our troops refueled them and continued chasing Rommel with some of his own machinery!

During this time, Both Hitler and the U.S. were developing jet propulsion. We were having a difficult time keeping jet turbines from destroying themselves because of the extreme operating conditions they had to endure. The inside of the turbine reached somewhere around 600'F while the outside had to withstand -40~ There wasn't a lubricant made that could take that kind of punishment. But Hitler's highly developed synthetic oils were able to operate under those conditions and his air force had the first jets.
After the war, the U.S. military was anxious to get its hands on the German military secret oil formulations. After we captured the German scientific archives in Berlin, their top secret formulations were turned over to the big five oil companies for further research.

A brilliant chemical engineer named Pete Peterson became America's top synlube expert, working to implement the German formulations. During this time more than two dozen small companies began producing synthetic lubricants for the military, and Peterson consulted with them to bring on the new age of synlubes.

In the late sixties, a fighter pilot named Alvin Fagan retired and started the first synthetic oil company to sell to the general public: All-Proof, of Duluth, Minn. Fagan reasoned that vehicles operating in the harsh northern winters could benefit from synlubes because of their ability to withstand extreme cold temperatures.

Fagan was not a marketing genius and his products were very slow to catch on. He employed another retired pilot, Albert Amatuzio, who had a vision of starting his own synthetic oil company. Amatuzio borrowed money from his brother, Dick, and took the formulations he learned about from Fagan and opened Amzoil across the river from All-Proof in Superior, Wis.
Amatuzio employed multi-level marketing (MLM) strategies for his synlubes similar to those used by Amway. MLM was hot and the company flourished. Meanwhile, Amatuzio's brother, Dick, still owned 40% of the company and, for unknown reasons couldn't get any money for his shares. He ultimately sued and left, leaving a scar between the two that endures today. Soon after this incident, Pennzoil sued Amzoil for copyright infringement, claiming that Anizoil's name was too similar to Pennzoil. They won the suit and Amatuzio had to change the name to Amsoil.

During the same time, John Williams, owner of Pacer Petroleum products, bought a new car for his daughter who was about to go off to college. He wanted to put an oil in the engine that would be able to last for the whole year she was away. So he filled it with new synthetic oils. She told a few friends about the wonderful oil her dad had put in the engine. Soon, the school auto shop heard the story and wanted to talk to her about this new, long-lasting lubricant.

It didn't take long for the local media to get wind of the story. Before he knew it, Williams was flooded with calls from people wanting to know more about this new oil. A man named Sol Levy saw the unique opportunity to join forces with Williams and market this new oil. In 1970 Pacer Petroleum got an SAE grade for the oil and started a division called EON Oil.
All-Proof had been using a formula containing 100% alcohol diester, one of hundreds of esters that were being sold without any wear-protecting additives. Certain diesters will dissolve the zinc coating on engine surfaces and accelerate wear. Unfortunately, Pacer was buying its synthetic oils from AllProof, with disastrous consequences. Pacer had convinced the city of Houston to run a test on their EON brand using the city fleet of vehicles. Soon after, the engines began having camshaft failures and the city sued EON for engine damage.

A number of Pacer dealers began telling people that EON oil was "better than the big oil brand and without the double cross." They were referring to Exxon motor oil which sued them in 1975 for trademark infringement. Exxon pointed out that EON sounded too similiar to EXxon. The case never went to court, but Williams received a settlement from Exxon to facilitate the name change of the company. The settlement (somewhere between 1/2 to 1 million dollars) was supposed to pay for the EON dealers' additional advertising for the name change. Williams pocketed the money, and the dealers received nothing.
Paul Baker, a large EON dealer in California, came up with a new name, mixing the letters to form NEO, and then petitioned Pacer to use the new name. Williams said Pacer Petroleum would use MLM and their synthetic oil under the Ultron name. Norman Lotz was recruited to head up the MLM effort and began undercutting former EON dealers by selling directly to their old accounts. The general idea was to cut EON dealers out of the picture.
Angry about the situation, Baker trademarked the NEO name, and started the NEO company in California in 1976. His basic premise was to use only the finest synthetic oil ingredients available. Unfortunately, he was still dependent on Pacer for his stock and in 1981, Williams threatened to cut off his supply. Meanwhile, Williams sold the EON division to Morton Thiacol, the rocket fuel company, forcing Baker to begin sourcing his own synthetic base stocks and bottling his own oil.

NEO introduced the first 100:1 2-cycle oil, the first synthetic gear lube as well as synthetic ATF. To this day, NEO utilizes the finest base stocks available for their oil. As Baker puts it, "I do not cut corners on our oil, and only use the finest stock, regardless of price."

Meanwhile, during the early seventies, a company called Blaze Oil began rebottling Amsoil and selling it under the Blaze Oil name in the south. Al Ainatuzio wasn't interested in that part of the country and was happy to make a profit selling in an area where his company had very little penetration. It didn't seem like synthetic oil - a product especially suitable for cold climates - would be popular in the hot south. But soon, Blaze was selling as much oil in the southern states as Amsoil was in the north.
Amatuzio later threatened to cut off the supply to Blaze and was ultimately sued for breaking his supply contract.

It was about this time that Amatuzio was taken to task by the federal government for selling synthetic industrial oils with little or no synthetic base stocks. The Feds told him to either stop calling it synthetic oil or put synthetic oil in it. In the mid-eighties, Amsoil stopped using high-quality diester base stocks, substituting cheap olefins instead. Even today, it is rumored that many of Amsoil's synthetic products are actually petroleum products with some synthetic added.

The rapidly rising wholesale costs of diester base stocks had synthetic lubricant prices jumping every six months. While all the other synlube companies had to raise their prices, Amsoil was lowering theirs. Amsoil sells their diesel oil to commercial accounts for less than $2 per quart! This was possible by switching to less effective polyol alpha olefin base stocks. Amsoil dealers began seeing engines sludge up like never before and many stopped using synlubes or changed to other brands of synlubes.
During the seventies, Peter Felice and Tim Kerrigan were working with Pacer Petroleum marketing EON. They were unhappy with Pacer and experienced many problems with mis-labeling, and incomplete additive packages and quality control. They switched to All-Proof. During the demise of Pacer, Kerrigan and Felice started Red Line in California. All-Proof decided to sue them for stealing the idea and started a competing company. Red Line counter-sued and won a $700,000 judgment against AllProof, which forced them to fold.
Not all synthetic oils are created equal. In fact, there is a tremendous difference between Amsoil, NEO, Mobil-1, Syntec, Red Line and the other brands. The chief difference is the base stock, which comprises some 90% of the oil. The base stock is the actual lubricant, the other 10% or so is the additive package.

Petroleum oils, or petrolubes, use a complex mixture of hydrocarbon molecules derived from refining crude oil base stocks into more uniform materials. Refineries remove most of the natural contaminants. The worst for the engine, wax, is never entirely removed and is a problem because it is a poor lubricant and reacts to heat by forming damaging byproducts.
By definition, synthetic oil means that it is not made from petroleum. Petroleum oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons. The refining process, (an extraction procedure, rather than a synthesis procedure), extracts the bad and leaves the good molecules. With a synthesis procedure, chemically smaller molecules of low molecular weight are combined to build a bigger molecule. The resulting high weight molecule is an excellent lubricant.
The relative ability of an oil to lubricate is determined by the components of the base stock. There are two principal classes of base stocks used in synthetic oils: synthesized hydrocarbons and organic esters.

The base stock materials used today for most popular synlubes are made of carbon and hydrogen molecules synthesized from ethylene gas molecules into polyalphaolefin (PAO). In fact, Mobil Oil took out a patent on the name Synthetic Hydrocarbon (SHC) in 1975. This material mimics petroleum molecules, using the good features and eliminating the bad ones. SHC's provide better viscosity characteristics than petrolubes, especially low temperature operating properties. SHC's are also more resistant to
o*dation. However, there is no significant improvement in the
degree of thermal stability because they are still hydrocarbon molecules which are very similar to petroleum hydrocarbon molecules.

Some of the popular brands of PAO oils include Amsoil, Mobil-1 and Castrol Syntec. PAO's are the cheapest synthetic oil base stocks. You can purchase them for as little as $3 a quart. PAO's aren't as durable as the other class of synthetic oils, the esters.

Organic esters are made by reacting certain acids with alcohols forming acid esters, diesters and polyol esters. This process uses expensive materials and results in an oil that costs about $8 per quart. NEO claims to use alcohol diester base stocks. Amsoil started out using diesters, but changed in the mid 80's to a blend of several synthetic base stocks with PAO being the main ingredient. Red Line uses polyol ester base stocks which are modified to improve thermal stability and performance.

All synlubes use widely differing additive chemistry. Some use highquality additives, some use cheap ones. None of the synthetic oils have problems with wax contamination because they are man made and don't come from crude oil. The esters have a big advantage because they are natural engine detergents. Right from the start, they have better sludge dispersing capability. PAO oils require detergent-dispersant additives and viscosity improvers.
It is important to know that synthetic oil companies are not completely divorced from using crude oil petrochemicals. Oil wells are still necessary to produce thete petrochemicals, which are used in the synthesis process. A considerable amount of energy is needed to build the synthetic materials. The amount of petrochemical needed varies with the type of base stock utilized. While PAO's are derived from 100% petrochemicals, esters are largely biological in origin and require less petrochemicals.

To lower costs, some synthetic oils contain petroleum oils in their base stocks. These oils are actually parasynthetic or semi-synthetic oils. In Europe, some oil companies are simply adding hydrogen to petroleum oil and calling it synthetic oil. It is truly a gray area, requiring clarification, SAE standardization and truth-in-labeling.