The Clean Manufacturing Game Part 6 of 10

Are You Playing the Clean Manufacturing Game?
A 10 part blog series discussing important aspects of clean manufacturing technology and implementation strategy.

Bio-based Lubricant CleanTech – Part 6 of 10

Renewable bio-based lubricants provides an environmentally sound and worker friendly alternative to petroleum-based cooling lubricants. Vegetable-based lubricants offer significant advantages such as superior tool lubricity, better surface finish, higher feed rates and a safer chemistry. Using a bio-based lubricant in minimum quantity application eliminates the costs associated with treatment, environmental compliance, and disposal, among other operational cost factors. Moreover, vegetable oils such as soybean oil exhibit natural rust inhibition on metal surfaces, a very important characteristic for ferrous machining applications.

Compared to petroleum-based fluids, bio-based lubricating fluids perform as well as or better when machining steel and aluminum, cooling and lubricating the cutting surface as it removes small metal chips and allowing faster, more accurate machining to be done. Bio-based lubricating fluids are biodegradable, non-toxic, have low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions, a high flash point and no offensive odor.

The initial purchase of a cutting fluid is merely the beginning of a much more expensive endeavor. According to a TechSolve, Inc., a non-profit testing laboratory based in Cincinnati, Ohio, for every $1 of coolant purchased, operational costs associated with using, maintaining and disposing of it can be more than $10. The real costs associated with cutting fluid purchases include the labor involved in mixing and transporting the fluids as well as machine draining and cleaning. In addition, deionized water make-up and coolant concentrate replenishment costs with coolant maintenance and disposal costs all contribute to a very high coolant life-cycle cost.

CO2 machining with bio-based lubricant additives eliminates the high cost of machining coolants and provides the opportunity to increase machining productivity in the form of longer tool life, increased speeds and depths of cut, and increased machine utilization, all of which can substantially improve the profitability of a machining operation.

David Jackson is President/CEO of Cleanlogix LLC and serves as the Chief Technology Officer for Cool Clean Technologies, Inc, based in Eagan, MN. He may be reached via e-mail at david.jackson@coolclean.com.

Part 7 of this series discusses CO2 CleanTech for thermal spray coating operations.