Advanced real time oil analysis technolo...
Advanced real time oil analysis technology could reduce oil consumption by over 12 billion litres per year – that is the equivalent of reducing CO2 emissions by 35.7 million tons every year, or removing 1.5 million cars from the road.
Oil used for lubrication of machines, from ships, planes and cranes to robots, generators, trucks and cars – electric cars included – consume over 40 billion litres of oil each and every year. Most is thrown away or recycled well before the end of its useful life, resulting in huge waste and unnecessary consumption. A new study shows that typically, oil is changed with 30% of its productive life remaining. New technology in the form of a small sensor enables oil quality to be accurately analysed and tracked in real-time and the perfect change point identified, thus enabling an instant and easy 30% reduction in use and waste.
Oil inside machinery is essential to keep them operating efficiently and reliably. Without oil in good condition, mechanical parts will quickly seize, causing equipment failure, damage, and expensive downtime – poor lubrication will also increase emissions. For example, the average family car has 5 litres of oil, an average dump truck 100 litres, an excavator 200 litres and an average wind turbine holds up to 600 litres. This goes largely unseen but is a massive contributor to waste and carbon emissions.
New oils with extended life is contributing towards reducing annual use, however, unless they are used to the full extent of their life, 30% of these oils are still wasted through early change intervals. The reason oil is changed too early is because maintenance is normally driven by a fixed time schedule rather than by actual need. Until now the only reliable way to know the real condition of oil in machinery was to take a sample and send it off to a lab for analysis – a process that is expensive and time consuming – or by using very expensive industrial sensor and filter systems. As such 99.9% of equipment has oil changed based upon time schedules, resulting in 30% waste.
A new oil analysis sensor technology from Tan Delta Systems in the UK enables a tiny, low cost, sensor to be fitted to any equipment to analyse and track the quality of the oil in real-time and tell the user exactly when the oil needs changing. This maximises the productive life of the oil and thus enables oil consumption and unnecessary maintenance to be reduced by 30%.
The sensors can be deployed on any equipment. From a car, to robots, trucks, wind turbines, ships, planes, generators – even on the pumps and drilling rigs used by the oil industry itself to realise massive carbon reductions. This innovation shows how technology can help make meaningful steps to achieving global and corporate ESG objectives.