Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Lubrication Experts. My name is obviously Rafe, and today I'm here with Willie Gartner from King Industries, and we are at the home of alkylated naphthalenes. Now, if you have been listening to this podcast for any stretch of time or you've seen a YouTube channel, you'll know that alkylated naphthalenes are my favorite base oil. As much as anyone can be said to have a favorite base oil, that's probably the nerdiest thing that anyone's ever said in this industry.
So, you know, being that we're at the home of King, I'm up here actually for a visit. You know, we don't get to do these interviews in person very often. So, Willie, you get to be a special guest, right?
[00:00:42] Speaker B: You're special.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: You get it. You get the in person experience.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Just so you know, athlete and athletes are my favorite place to help.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Oh, excellent. Excellent. Well, I mean, there's only one correct answer when you're in this building, right?
All right, so we're going to talk all things ans, um, and Willie is going to have, you know, a wealth of knowledge and information that he's able to bring to the table. And I think ans is. Is one of those molecules which people may be aware of but don't know the details.
You know, exactly what it's for, you know, the applications, the history behind that. So we're going to get into all of that stuff today.
So maybe. Willy, could you please first explain what your role is in King and what it is that you do in this building?
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Thanks, Rick. First of all, thanks for coming. Great to have you here. And you know, we watch your videos online. Always excited to hear it and, and know that you're a big fan of Apple and Napoli. So glad you're able to join us. And thanks for having me. And you know, I started king possibly 22 years ago, actually as a pilot engineer where we were just starting to develop the Athlete and Athlean technology, producing it here at King Industries.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: So.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: So I had a ground level start.
You know, we played around with different, you know, mole ratios of, you know, naphthalene and olefins, different catalyst systems. So we came up with our product line and then from there, you know, we developed it into a business now that is growing, that we're actually building a new facility which is going to increase our capacity by five or six times. So we're excited about it. You know, accolade athletes. When I first came here, you know, knowing how to make them versus how they're used is a transition.
But you know, we see the, the market and the industry trending, you know, more towards synthetic. And that's where the alkylated appleanes as, you know, fit in. They help improve the, you know, from oxidative stability, the solvency, performance, you know, different attributes that they provide to especially group 3s and PAOs.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. So maybe just to start, because I think a lot of people may not even be aware of what an alkylated Netflix is. Right. So you already mentioned naphthalene, you mentioned olefins.
So can we kind of combine all of these together and give a description for what exactly is this molecule?
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah, no, sure. You know, we take naphthalene, which, you know, most people know as mothballs. You know, people have it in their house and then we take different chain, chain length olefins and then we attach it to the naphthalene and you get different substitutions, you get, you know, mono being one orphan attached and then you get dye, tri and tetra and the way you choose what catalyst system you use and, and the chain length of the olefin, you get different properties. And you know, we become, you know, through a lot of testing of bio plant development, we've narrowed it down to, you know, our current product line that we see gives the best performance depending on the viscosity grade and the requirement.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: So if I were to compare it to some other base oils, right.
You'd say it's not like a PAO in the sense that with a PAO you're really just extending the size of the molecule. Right. It's a polymerization reaction. You make something bigger or smaller depending on what kind of viscosity you want. This is maybe a little bit more akin to an ester, right? Where with an ester you've got that sort of core functional group and then depending on the direction of the functional group and sort of what we attach to it, you can get different properties out of it. Is that similar with the AMS in.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: The sense of what some of the benefits esters can bring? You know, it can bring solvency, performance, you know, lubricity, you know, being a more polar, you know that they have better solubility properties. So when, when you look at your current base oils out there in the market, you know, years ago, you know, 30, 40 years ago, group one was the main one and group one had, you know, maybe not the best thermal oxidative performance, but it had good solvency. Why? Because it wasn't as refined. So it had the goodies in there, you know, cyclics, aromatics, you know, so then as they went, as time moved on and they saw that refining base oils further along provided better attributes. You know, you had your group twos and troop threes. And then as you mentioned, the PAOs definitely improve the oxidative stability, but you lost some of the solvency benefits. And you know, being an aromatic different than an ester, we bring the solvency properties with that direction where the esters are being a polar molecule, so they're bringing that benefit in a different manner. So there's some, you know, similarities in that aspect. But when it comes to certain performance attributes, the applied Napoleon I think are clearly better choice.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: So maybe you've gotten into a little bit of very minor bit of history there.
So, you know, you already mentioned working on the development of ANS early on in your career and things like that. So would you mind just kind of taking us back to like, how do we develop these molecules? Where do we come from? How do we even figure out that they would be maybe appropriate for use in lubricants?
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Well, a lot of times I think really after World War II, you had the, you know, generation of, you know, jet turbines, machinery that was running at higher temperature, you know, more severe requirements. So, you know, esters were used initially and they're still used and you know, for jet engines because you need that thermal stability and performance and the lubricity they bring. But then alkylate and apleans in the 50s were started, you know, as pathetic lubricants and, and you know, like any project that started, once they developed them, they saw the benefits of it. At that time, the market really wasn't ready for them because you were still predominantly, you know, group two. So you had this base stock that could do things at high temperatures, thermal stability and provide those other benefits. But in the marketplace at that time, the other lubricants were still meeting the requirements. And they, the group threes and fours really weren't that present at that time. And over time, once the PAO market, group three is really in the, you know, late 80s, early 90s started to come, then you really saw that the, the alkali Napoleon started finding a home as a baseball modifier. So improving the properties of, you know, your group threes, group fours and in some cases group two, depending on the application and you know, and also being used with esters in certain applications to produce, you know, provide better volatility performance, like in chain loops, high temperature chain loops.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: So it's a, it's a group five, right?
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Group five, yeah.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Okay, so we're kind of, you know, the way the API based docs are groups constructed. So unfortunately group of five is like that catch all term the other ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for everyone, anyone who doesn't know already, but I think that's most of the people that listen to this podcast. Obviously group one through the three, that's the mineral oils. For some reason, PAO gets to be its own special boy.
It gets its own little group and then everyone else gets kind of lumped into group five and that's, that ranges everything from extremely high performance, you know, alkylated naphthalings, polyphenol ethers, all that sort of stuff right through to vegetable oils. Right?
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, tags, you know.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay, so now we've, we've kind of got a bit of a background on like what the molecule is and where it comes from.
What are the kinds of properties that I would expect just purely of an alkylated naphthalene. What it you, you already mentioned something like solvency and really good stability.
But what about that molecule kind of gives it those properties?
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Well, the, the naphthalene bare aromatic and then you have the oath and attached to it, but you have no functional groups. So sure, that's what makes base oil pretty stable too because you know, they're linear carbon chains so there's nothing really that can get attacked unless heat creates the bonds.
So in this case, similar to us, we don't have, we don't have that any functional groups. But because they're aromatic, the bonds are much more stronger.
So you know, these applications were, you know, where they perform is, you know, we see it in you know, longer lasting fluids, high temperature and you know, when you look at your typical, your base stocks that you know, perform well. I mean what they've done with PAOs, group threes, you know, group twos, but they don't have like I said, some of those goodies that the group one had, you know, the solvency properties. So the molecule itself, when you compare it to like a mineral oil, group two, group three and a PAO from just say a testing at like rpvot, you're gonna see, you know, performance be three or four times better. You know, as far as minutes depending on which alkaline alphalene you pick. You know, the lower viscosity with a higher mono content is going to give you better oxidative performance where the higher molecular weight with the, you know, di, tri and tetra are going to give you better thermal stability and volatility performance.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: But just so I can stop you there, so we can, we can make sure everyone's on the same page. When you talk about mono di tri, what exactly are you talking about? If we pictured the molecule.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So if you see like the, the you have the naphthalene ring and then if you have just one olen on it, that's a mono. And then once you put 2 on it, then now it's a die 3. Try ketchup. Now there's a certain limit because of, you know, steric hindrance and stuff. You don't make, you don't. Every one of the naffling carbons doesn't get elephant. There's a certain point where, you know, it, it stops. But overall, and we control that with, you know, our unique process. So we were able to dial in what we want as we see as the properties that give the best, best performance. And again, like I said, being a pie plant, we did a lot of trial and error with different stoichiometry relationships of the Nathalie and Olafin to get the properties we want.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: Okay, so then we talked about that sort of like the stability of the bond. So the fact that it, it doesn't have functional groups. So I guess in the ester that, that's sort of like the carbon double bonded to the oxygen, single bonded to another oxygen.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Is that sort of functional group? We don't have that in an an which makes it inherently stable. Plus you've also mentioned that the aromatic groups are also inherently stable.
Um, another thing that you mentioned is like solvency as well.
So if I were to compare it, like let's say for example, you've got, you know, in, in terms of solvencies on base oils, you've got, you know, Laos sit on one end, very low solvency and then probably on the other end you've got your oil soluble packs.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: That sit kind of at the other extreme.
Esters are sort of somewhere in the middle.
Where would an AN sit in that sort of.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah, we sort of see it as, you know, you have your mineral oils, pao your group two scoop threes like you said on the, say this side of it, where they don't have the great solvency properties.
And then you say your esters over here with your pags, you know, and then you have your alkaline napoleon sort of not in the halfway point, but a little bit to closer to the ester side, further away from the mineral oil as far as solvency performance. So there's some benefits with that. You know, they're not as surface competitive as esters. So some advantages and you know, again depending on the formulation there's, there's a clear advantage to using the alkali nap plans every synastra.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: So that then brings us to. We've, we've talked about the raw material properties just of an a.m. but when you start to put it in formulations, let's say for example you just talked about competition on metal surfaces.
So why is it an advantage that it would be less competitive?
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Well, in some cases because the ester itself is, wants to grow the surface but you allow additives to go to the surface. Yeah, basically corrosion, you know, additives, your anti wear surface, active additives. So there's a balancer.
And as the life of the lubricant gets, gets consumed, you know, more additives grow to the surface. But those other additives still have to find their way. So as time goes on you can, the longer you compete against the ester, the less pro, you know, the statistically whatever that probability is. We see some advantage with the AM because they're not necessarily competing with, with the surface like the esters are. So it's that balance. We like to think we're in that sweet spot where you're going to get the solvency properties you need but you're not going to really compete with the additives as much as the esters do.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Okay.
And I guess you know, with esters being somewhat prone to hydrolysis as well.
Do you like how does water interact with an an.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So you know, well water doesn't, it's really doesn't affect a. And, and you know, when you correctly brought up when you look at compressors or certain, you know, industrial applications here, oils where say you're getting water contamination. Every lubricant has a certain lifetime. You got the additives, you got your base oil and then you got your co based stock. And let's just say in this case you have an ester. So you have your ester over time breaking down generating asset value. Your additives also are know prone to over time to break down and generate different species. So now you have these two things in your formulation that are breaking down at different rates. But they're breaking down. Well pull the ester out, put the AA now the A is not breaking down.
So that one factor you took away. And so when you're talking about fluids where you're trying to get that long life, extended life, you removed one component. Because one thing about lubricants, you measure acid value which leads you to understand that the formulation is breaking down, but you don't want the viscosity to change because that's like the critical point. So if you wait too long and you see your acid value changing, but you don't respond until your, until your viscosity changes, well now you get that's going to lead to equipment value because all equipment's designed to perform at a certain viscosity. So acid value is a good indicator of oil breaking down. But you want to stop that viscosity change. So going back to the ester with additives now, that component of the alkaline applicants is not going to be affecting that. It's not going to change in viscosity, it's not going to break down. So that's what we see, you know, benefits and it's, you know, proven with our customers. We see them once, once they make that change, they see the benefits.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so, so that's kind of like what, what ans give you in your formulation.
So what are typical formulations that you would see alkali Napoleon in?
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Yeah, so predominantly for us, the marketplace is broken up into, you know, that we have the grease market, you have your industrial lubricants and you, you have your high temperature chain fluids. So those are three markets we see. There's also the automotive side which we get involved with in certain companies revolving, racing. But from our end, because we're more, we're more focused on the higher viscosity alkalings, the ones that are like 120 center stove to 170, 180 at 40C versus a lower viscosity one like 35, which we do offer. But from our end we, we push more the higher viscosity. And what we see the benefits is in high temperature chain oils is reduce volatility. They're usually combined with esters, high temperature esters. We see a great improvement in reducing the volatility of the formulation which helps the people use a lubricant, use less of it because it's not volatilizing off and they don't have to wet the chain as as often. This is because you want to keep the chain wet, but you don't want to make it too wet because then you start building a varnish. And that's one thing nice about the alkaline and naphthalene too. At high temperatures it disassociates.
So you have the olefin breaking off from the naphthalene ring and just flashing off versus with esters or other mineral spirit or other mineral oil based stocks including pao. They can start either breaking up into fragments which can lead to varnish or you know like aspirations they can start polymerizing which can lead to varnish. The other market we see ourselves in Greece's because increases we see that when people modify our our grease formulations were anywhere from 20 to 30, 40% of our KR. They see improved yields, improved work stability. So there's a clear benefit. They see that much smoother grease which you know, if you think about a smoother grease, better surface contact.
So and then obviously with you know we mentioned dimension before but they have great response to antioxidants.
So because of that that just improves the life of the, of the grease or any formulation.
Compressor screw compressors is a market that we're seeing more and more application in.
These screw compressors have really taken the market over in the last 20 years from the reciprocal side. And those you know, because they're so tight they, they're typically ashless.
So ashless formulations don't have the benefit of having a zinc phosphate in it which is can be an anti wear as well as a secondary antioxidant, the extended light. So these need a high ferrule amount, high treat of antioxidants which as I mentioned they extend the life of the alkaline and ethylene further. So in these ashes formulations where you're running at you know, 200F degrees that's really where the alkaline shine. So you know these things are used out and you know, fracking things, you got these big machines out there sucking in air dirt.
So you know that you want an oil that's not going to break down because you already have you know, things coming into it a lot of water, they separate water well and they won't hydrolyze. So that's an area. And then gear oils is another area we see the benefits of just because the treat rate of additive's a little higher than you see versus say a compressor or hydraulic and those can range from like 0.6 to tops maybe 2%. Where gear oils you tend to see that 3 to 5% additive treat rate.
So helps you know, especially in your more base stocks like PIO group threes you don't see gear also much because of viscosity is limited to like 68 centiscope. So but that benefit and then the benefit is too as time goes on, as things break down, that silency benefit helps too, because when things break down, you want to keep them solubilized. You don't want them falling out as varnish.
So there's multiple benefits for athlete and applenes.
You know, we see in the marketplace once or once we have customers who formulate it and supply their customers, there's nothing but positive things they say and they really don't switch out of it. It's, it's been a, you know, and like I said, since I joined King, it's been a growth that's been pretty linear and I expect it to continue because I think the market's going to shift more and more towards the synthetic.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: So, I mean, probably the only thing which is kind of not, not a black mark necessarily, but you know, where, where traditionally people have desired, for example, a high viscosity index. Right. That's probably the one area where AMs probably don't match up. Right. To let's say, for example, like your esters and your sort of your pa.
But I guess if you're using it at relatively low treat rates and especially in industrial formulations where VI is not really that important.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: It, it's, it's probably kind of like ideally suited to most of the applications that you're talking about. Right?
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Yeah, we see, you know, overall, most of the people who are formulated with it are using it, you know, globally.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: You know, and one thing about absence, they do respond well to vis. So you can prove it with the correct vi.
Yeah, that's not really been, I think, a challenge for us because again, you hit on it mostly is because the treat rate tends to be in that range where it's not really, you know, it might drop a poor point of a PAO from negative 48 or something to negative 44.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Now sometimes that might be a showstopper, but yeah, you know, a lot of cases.
Yeah.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: So maybe one other thing is just that, you know, you've described the structure as being. Looking like very much an aromatic. Right. So it's effectively what, two benzene rings kind of stuck together. Merckx, the NAT flame, which I'm, I'm no organic chemist. Right. But in, in my conception of it, that looks pretty similar to a lot of the antioxidants that we use in formulations. Do you get any inherent.
Well, one of the other things that you mentioned is the RP VRT value can be quite high of a neat an.
Do you get antioxidants? Yeah, just by adding an.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: It's not in the sense of. When you look at a typical Like a minic or phenolic, which is really a, a scavenger of the free radical. So, so they're not going to scavenge free radicals, but they're not going to generate a lot of free radicals.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Especially at certain temperatures. And you see that in PDSC data, you don't see them break down. You see an RPVRT testing. So because they're, you know, the aromatic itself and those stronger bonds, the, the generation of free radicals is much less than you see in other base stocks. So that end when you have a formulation with antioxidants, only a certain percentage is needed at a high, at certain temperatures to, to keep the free radical generation in, in the alkaline athlete. That leaves most of that antioxidant available for the other parts of the formulation.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: So that's what you were talking about when you said it had a really good response. Yeah. To antioxidants. Yeah. Okay, that, that because it's not generating.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: As much as a free radical as a PAO. Like you could put 0.2% in a PAO, you know, say 8 and 0.2% or 015 and, and you'll see like 900 minutes in ours versus say 200 tops. 250. Yeah. And that's just because that antioxidant's not being consumed as fast because not as many free radicals are being generated.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: Huh. Interesting.
So, you know, we, we talked a lot about kind of what the molecule is, you know, the typical applications where you'd see it. So where do you think kind of the future lies in the molecule? Right. So you know, if I had to, to point to some, let's say, overarching trends in the industry, you know, we, I think we already said at the very top of the discussion, everyone is slowly, our industry moves slowly. Right. But everyone is slowly moving in the direction of synthetics.
So that's probably in favor of, of ANS being used in more formulations.
Do you see any, do you see any, let's say for example, either applications or lubricant types where ANS are not currently in use, but you could see them being like beneficial.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I think for, you know, when you look at the market, like I said, we're, you know, currently in gear oils, you know, compressors, high temperature chain loops. You know, the one area maybe is hydraulics, you know, over time as they develop the new, you know, systems. Over time, the more tighter tolerances develop, the more things run hotter. It's just, you know, and whether that time frame is 5 10, 15 years. Industry is always headed, if you just look back from manufacturing of cars, how much tighter your engine is today, you know, how much more violent it is, you know, with, with, you know, the air, the turbos and, and you know, you get four cylinders now, like back in my day, if you had 300 horsepower, it's like, woo, you know, now 300 horsepower is your standard, you know, BMW, you know, three series, you know, so they're, what are they doing? They're taking essentially that same smaller engine actually, you know, per liter and getting more out of it. So what are they doing? They're running it faster, hotter. So industry keeps working that way. So I think it's just a matter of, you know, what's the next application where, hey, we see we can get more production out of this unit. And okay, that lubricant's gonna be, it's gonna require more demanding lubricant. So you know, from the current ones we think of, you know, which is, you know, I say gear oils, hydraulics, compressors, turbines, there'll be something else that comes along. Whether it's these robots that they want to work faster, you know, like I said, the high temperature chain lube part has been something that we, you know, been seeing amazing growth in. And just because, you know, these, you know, production is. How do you get it out? You run hotter, run faster.
So yeah, that's the trend, you know, and then longer life, which is the next part, you know, when they talk about carbon footprint.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: There's a part where you want to reduce your carbon footprint to, you know, reducing your emissions, you know, using things that are biodegradable or renewable. But there's also a part that we think of is, hey, if you can, if you have a factory that you're changing fluids out every three months and you're using, you know, say just picking up 50,000 gallons of fluid, but now you're only changing it out every nine months. You're reducing your carbon footprint through waste and not use. And plus you're reducing downtime. And that's really been the trend. You know, me as a car owner changed my oil. When I was younger at 3,000 miles, I still changed my oil. But now instead of changing every 3,000, which is roughly every three, four months now I'm changing it maybe every nine months. I like that, you know, not that I don't mind changing my. But it's less work.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: So look at factories, same way, you know, and they don't have to shut down to change over that's a benefit for them because, you know, everything's at the end. It's all about who's going to make that better. Mousetrap, you know. And you know, if you're a person who's in the industry, whether you have a compressor gearbox, you know, hydraulics, downtime is lost time, whether it's change over fluid or breakdown because you didn't use the correct lubricant. And you know, one thing at kin, you know, with the test equipment we have and other things that you'd see, you know, we can help companies formulate, achieve these lubricants that not only meet the current standards of the Olympics, can surpass them. Yep.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. So I mean, you know, just something to add on there in terms of future applications. So for anyone who's seen a couple of videos on the bright stock replacements.
So I know that people that I work with that are looking forward to ExxonMobil coming out with their EHC340 max.
Right. And using that as a bright stock replacement.
When you do that, come and see me because I can almost guarantee that when you switch from the group one to the group two, you'll start having deposit issues. And I think, you know, for my clients at least, I see, you know, this is being a bit of a solution to that in some of the heavier hydraulic oils as well as the heavy gear oils that we're going to start to see 340 max in because the same varnish issues where we went from group one to group two turbine oils and all of a sudden we started producing all of these deposits. I think you're going to see exactly the same evolution but for a whole raft of different products.
So yeah, don't speak to me when you have problems.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: No, no, I agree with, you know, there's, there's some changes you can't foresee, but they're gonna happen. Changes, you know, continues to happen and you know, anything that moves needs a lubricant and it's just a matter, you know, what, what conditions that that lubricant needs to be used at. And that's where the alkali athletes are definitely, you know, they're gonna find that mark because like I, you know, you said things, you know, we talked about things are running hotter and they, they want em to last longer. And that's like the ideal fit for these alkali and athletes. So. And like you said that trend, you know, I agree with you. 100, you're gonna need something help solubilize that additives cool well.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Hey, Willie. Really appreciate you coming to talk about my favorite base oil. So I am. Mine, too.
Very partial to it and have always really liked it in a couple of products that I've tended to use with customers. So, yeah, really appreciate getting that sort of, like, insight into what is kind of like the mystery base oil. I think it's one that people have heard about but don't know a lot about. So, yeah, really appreciate your time. And if anyone needs to know anything about him, come see William.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: Yep. Please look forward to it.
