Conversion of used Oil intoLubricatingGrease and Characteristics Evaluation

Lubricant grease is consist of a mixture of a fluid lubricant usually petroleum oil and a thickener (soap) dispersed in the oil. The oil is one of the main sources that threaten public health and pose a significant threat to the environment. The work aims to convert used oil into lubricant grease, since the petroleum prices were increase each year, using used lubricant as base oil is the best solution to produce grease in the low cost at the same time it will decrease the water pollution. Soap thickeners are formed by reacting metallic hydroxide, or alkali, with a fat, fatty acid, or ester. Two type of routes are used in this production that is sodium soap and second route added calcium carbonate and sulfuric acid to the used oil. The reaction temperature, residence time maintained at 120oC, 120minutes and the cooling spent 48 hr. Viscometer was use in this experiment to analyze the quality and performances of grease product to select the best type of soap to produce grease. The different percent of soap are used to know the effect of percent of soap to the viscosity of grease. In the experiment, grease was successfully produced from used lubricant. The best way to produce grease is with sodium soap, where sodium soap is the strongest thickener compare to another thickener. The experiments done in laboratory using different percentage of sodium soap (5 %.10 %, 15 %, 20 % and 25 %) and FTIR apparatus was used a fresh standard grease and the synthesized grease were analyzed. The results shows the grease manufactured using20 % sodium soap is close to the standard grease. Then it is selected in the design scale. Many parameters were analyzed to investigates the quality of the synthesized grease such asdensity, viscosity, composition and dropping point.