subject: There Are Many Kinds Of Compressor Oil Each Depending On The Compressor Type [print this page] Compressors are classified as reciprocating, rotary, jet, centrifugal etc. This classification depends on the mechanics that is used to compress the fluid and if it is a positive displacement or dynamic type. The former kind of compressor is able to confine many successive fluid volumes within a closed space even if the pressure of the fluid is increases when the volume of the space decreases. Dynamic compressors use vanes or impellers that rotate to pass on velocity and pressure to the fluid.
Compressor oil can be of many types and depends on the type of compressor that it will be used for. Compressor displacement is the amount of volume that is displaced by the element per unit of time and is measured as cubic feet per minute. When fluid that is being compressed flows in series though one or more compressing cylinders, the displacement of the compressor is equal to the first element. The oil that is used for compressors is dependent on the application single unit or multi stage configurations. Based on this, the compressor oil can be either mineral oil or synthetic fluids. Highly refined mineral oils work well with an ashless additive system for the lubrication of rotors, bearings and gears in rotary compressors. This is especially so if the oil flooded screw type that has a drain cycle of up to 2000 hours. Another compressor oil is based on Polyalphaolefin and is suitable for flooded rotary compressor that operates in extremely high and low climatic conditions, harsh environments etc. Synthetic compressor oil is based completely on ester lubricants that are designed to meet the requirements of lubricating the most demanding air compressor applications.
The environment is being constantly degraded and this awareness has led to biodegradable oils being manufactured for the past several years. Many manufacturers worldwide promote these oils because of their being non toxic. The two main classes of biodegradable oils are vegetable oils and synthetics. These are different from the traditional mineral oil-base lubricants. Vegetable oils include those which are derived from corn,, soybean, canola, peanut, sunflower, olive and many others. When they are in their pure form, they consist of primarily triglyceride molecular structures and have many limitations to their performance, namely poor thermal, oxidation and hydrolytic stability e.g. most vegetable oils are unable to withstand temperatures that are higher than 80 degrees centigrade.
Major oil companies provide little information about the application guidelines or how to maintain these products after they have been used as lubricants of machines. Users of these biodegradable oils must be ready to treat these oils a little differently from the standard mineral based oils. There are three aspects that are related to environment degradation and toxicity that these oils have to address minimize loss, minimize impact of loss and efficient collection and treatment of waste material.
