Performance of Base Oils & Future Trends

[StevieC]

Stumbled across this and it was interesting in general...

Particularly this... It should put the Group 3 / 4 debate to rest.

Quote
Group III vs. PAO (Group IV) Performance:
Historically, polyalphaolefins (PAOs) have had superior performance characteristics such as viscosity index (VI), pour point, volatility and oxidation stability that could not be achieved with conventional mineral oils. With modern base oil manufacturing, VI, pour point, volatility and oxidation stability all can be independently controlled.

A modern Group III oil can actually outperform a PAO in several areas important to lubricants, such as additive solubility, lubricity and antiwear performance. Group III base oils can now rival PAO stocks in pour point, viscosity index and oxidation stability performance. Some of the key measures for finished lubricant performance where Group III must compete with Group IV include:

Pour Point
Cold Crank (property)
NOACK Volatility
Oxidation Stability


Source: https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/533/base-oil-trends

 

[deven]

One of the only advantages of PAO nowadays is oil change interval. It can outlast Group III oils serviceability range.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by deven
One of the only advantages of PAO nowadays is oil change interval. It can outlast Group III oils serviceability range.

You'd think PAO was gold though by the way some folks talk about it and stress over the amount of PAO in an oil.

 

[deven]

Originally Posted by StevieC
Originally Posted by deven
One of the only advantages of PAO nowadays is oil change interval. It can outlast Group III oils serviceability range.

You'd think PAO was gold though by the way some folks talk about it and stress over the amount of PAO in an oil.

Yup they got the BITOGITIS.

 

[OVERKILL]

It has always been the case that Group III has had better additive solubility than PAO, but that doesn't make it good, PAO is a poor benchmark, lol. Group II is even better, Group I even better still. This ties into the varnish discussion, as the lower the group level (excluding POE and the like) the more polar the base.

The other points are less definitive when you look how they are broken down further in the article:

Quote
Pour point is one property where a gap certainly exists, but pour point depressants have closed the performance gap significantly. It is important to understand that the pour point of the fully formulated lubricant (base oils plus additives) is the critical property.


PAO doesn't require PPD's to achieve its cold temperature performance, which is quite evident when you contrast base oil properties.

The CCS graphic shows that PAO is still better, albeit the performance is close, in that metric as well.

This is then further supported by this quote:
Quote
0W-20 and 0W-30 engine oils, with their extremely low temperature performance requirements, will continue to be dominated by PAO-base fluids for the next few years.


The chart for Noack still shows PAO as being (slightly) better.

Oxidation stability, the gap has been essentially closed.

I also thought it interesting that CP (who is a large manufacturer of PAO) plugs their GTL product near the end

Quote
Incredibly, one new base oil feedstock is natural gas. In this decade, we will see a new type of ultraperformance base oil derived from wax which is derived from natural gas via the Fischer-Tropsch process (see Related Reading at end of article). The plants making these super-synthetic Group III base oils will employ the latest hydroprocessing technology. Dubbed GTL, for gas-to-liquids, these base stocks are already being referred to as Group III+, or "Super-Group III."

ChevronTexaco's brand name for these products is FTBOTM base oils (FT for Fischer-Tropsch). They will have VIs significantly higher than PAOs, and they will be used to make the fuel-efficient, long-life automotive and industrial oils of the future.

 

[PimTac]

Chevron Texaco?

How old is this article?

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by PimTac
Chevron Texaco?

How old is this article?


September, 2003 apparently, LOL

 

[OVERKILL]

I will add though, that, despite the age of the article, the point about PAO being continued to be used in 0w-20's for example seems to have held true to some extent given M1 EP 0w-20, AP 0w-20 and AFE 0w-20 and their PAO content.

Of course contrarily you have the VII monster Group III TGMO 0w-20 as well, so

 

[benjy]

PAO + Ester oils are surely superior, but do you need that superiority at 2 to 3 times the cost? for most the answer is no, but some applications its worth it IMO. although group III match up well when new as they age + the additives used to compete with PAO + Ester oils are gone they fall short. oils are tested as finished + new but not any extensive $$$ quality fully analyzing is done after the miles are on it!!! few except the blenders + pros on this site REALLY know whats in an oil, we try to learn but only understand a small amount about oil formulations.

 

[PeterPolyol]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by PimTac
Chevron Texaco?

How old is this article?


September, 2003 apparently, LOL

was gonna say... that GrIII vs PAO argument sounded familiar from the oildrop.server101 days.... it is still somewhat relevant.

Also stevie is really killing it with that post count! The guy is a machine!

 

[NYSteve]

Originally Posted by StevieC
Stumbled across this and it was interesting in general...

Particularly this... It should put the Group 3 / 4 debate to rest.



Well that's optimistic considering this is from Sept 03 and you have 15years of BITOG archives to search group 3 vs 4.

StevieC - taking this as a joking tone as I enjoyed the article despite the date!

 

[buster]

LOL this is old news. About 15 years ago I remember reading in Racecar Engineering Magazine an article on F1 oils. They interviewed a Lubrication Engineer from Shell. At that time Shell's F1 oil was a 0w20 and 0w30 Group III oil. They mentioned how III had better solvency. I always found that interesting, being Shell clearly had access to PAO's but chose a III base.

Castrol was one of the first to move to III from PAO, then Mobil followed. Amsoil at one time had PAO labeled on their boxes when you ordered from them. Now Amsoil's position is to not talk about what baseoils they use, like all the others have been doing.

It's always about the finished end product and how it performs. It doesn't always matter how you get there. PAO still has some advantages though over III, as Overkill stated. Cost is going to be higher with a IV/V product.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by buster
LOL this is old news. About 15 years ago I remember reading in Racecar Engineering Magazine an article on F1 oils. They interviewed a Lubrication Engineer from Shell. At that time Shell's F1 oil was a 0w20 and 0w30 Group III oil. They mentioned how III had better solvency. I always found that interesting, being Shell clearly had access to PAO's but chose a III base.

Castrol was one of the first to move to III from PAO, then Mobil followed. Amsoil at one time had PAO labeled on their boxes when you ordered from them. Now Amsoil's position is to not talk about what baseoils they use, like all the others have been doing.

It's always about the finished end product and how it performs. It doesn't always matter how you get there. PAO still has some advantages though over III, as Overkill stated. Cost is going to be higher with a IV/V product.

As Overkill has stated in previous threads, that you can tell a lot about what base oils a company is using by looking at it's CCS, Noack, Pour Point, Viscosity Index values as well as looking at how quickly it shears down and/or oxidizes over time (the latter 2 confirmed by UOA's). Which is why it looks like Amsoil is using a good amount of PAO in their signature line and good amount of Grp III in their OE / XL lines when they are all compared.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by StevieC
Originally Posted by buster
LOL this is old news. About 15 years ago I remember reading in Racecar Engineering Magazine an article on F1 oils. They interviewed a Lubrication Engineer from Shell. At that time Shell's F1 oil was a 0w20 and 0w30 Group III oil. They mentioned how III had better solvency. I always found that interesting, being Shell clearly had access to PAO's but chose a III base.

Castrol was one of the first to move to III from PAO, then Mobil followed. Amsoil at one time had PAO labeled on their boxes when you ordered from them. Now Amsoil's position is to not talk about what baseoils they use, like all the others have been doing.

It's always about the finished end product and how it performs. It doesn't always matter how you get there. PAO still has some advantages though over III, as Overkill stated. Cost is going to be higher with a IV/V product.

As Overkill has stated in previous threads, that you can tell a lot about what base oils a company is using by looking at it's CCS, Noack, Pour Point, Viscosity Index values as well as looking at how quickly it shears down and/or oxidizes over time (the latter 2 confirmed by UOA's). Which is why it looks like Amsoil is using a good amount of PAO in their signature line and good amount of Grp III in their OE / XL lines when they are all compared.

 

[ChemLabNL]

Yup!

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by PimTac
Chevron Texaco?

How old is this article?


September, 2003 apparently, LOL

and OP slams me for anything that's not "fresh"

 

[Solarent]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
It has always been the case that Group III has had better additive solubility than PAO, but that doesn't make it good, PAO is a poor benchmark, lol. Group II is even better, Group I even better still. This ties into the varnish discussion, as the lower the group level (excluding POE and the like) the more polar the base.

The other points are less definitive when you look how they are broken down further in the article:

Quote
Pour point is one property where a gap certainly exists, but pour point depressants have closed the performance gap significantly. It is important to understand that the pour point of the fully formulated lubricant (base oils plus additives) is the critical property.


PAO doesn't require PPD's to achieve its cold temperature performance, which is quite evident when you contrast base oil properties.

The CCS graphic shows that PAO is still better, albeit the performance is close, in that metric as well.



This is why when it comes to developing formulas for difficult to reach cold temperature performance while maintaining adequate KV100 for say a 0W40 HDEO product there will continue to be PAO used. In fact there are very few 0Wxx oils that do not contain at least some PAO.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted by StevieC


... It should put the Group 3 / 4 debate to rest.



GLWT...

Waaaaaay to much OCD (oil compulsive disorder) here!

IMO, one of the reasons this issue took on the life it still has, is the whiff of fraud (real or perceived) that came with the Castrol Syntec vs Mobil-1 arguments of 15-20 years ago. That was confounded and compounded by the essentially failed litigation (much in the administrative law world) between Exxon-Mobil and Castrol. And this wound festers on to this day. Add in understandable proprietary secrecy and the fact that most oils now are mixtures of various classes of base oils, and we've got a "problem" that will seemingly never go away.

So, is it a matter of:

Or:

 

[StevieC]

^^^ Sadly, I think so.

 

[buster]

Originally Posted by Solarent
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
It has always been the case that Group III has had better additive solubility than PAO, but that doesn't make it good, PAO is a poor benchmark, lol. Group II is even better, Group I even better still. This ties into the varnish discussion, as the lower the group level (excluding POE and the like) the more polar the base.

The other points are less definitive when you look how they are broken down further in the article:

Quote
Pour point is one property where a gap certainly exists, but pour point depressants have closed the performance gap significantly. It is important to understand that the pour point of the fully formulated lubricant (base oils plus additives) is the critical property.


PAO doesn't require PPD's to achieve its cold temperature performance, which is quite evident when you contrast base oil properties.

The CCS graphic shows that PAO is still better, albeit the performance is close, in that metric as well.



This is why when it comes to developing formulas for difficult to reach cold temperature performance while maintaining adequate KV100 for say a 0W40 HDEO product there will continue to be PAO used. In fact there are very few 0Wxx oils that do not contain at least some PAO.


True. The Noack is also better with PAO.

How did Mobil achieve such a a great MRV number for the AFE 0w20 (MRV @ -40ºC (ASTM D4684) 9200) with it's only 30% PAO? Oxidation stability is also better with PAO's, but A/O's also play a role. Oxidation resistance is crucial in long drain intervals, which is why you see Amsoil SS using IV/V. (I'm assuming that based on the low Noack numbers and cost).