COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTION OF LUBRICATING GREASE ,USING WASTE ENGINE OIL,TREATED ENGINE OIL AND COMPLEX THICKENER (POLYPROPYLENE) AS ADDITIVE

ABSTRACT The hazard of environmental pollution through disposing used lubricating oils on the ground in many developing countries is of great concern to public health and ecology. Used lubricating oil contains a number of degraded additives, impurities, and residues resulting from the combustion process and frictions of mechanical parts. Some of these are poisonous or carcinogenic like PCB (poly-cyclic benzenes), PAH (poly-aromatic hydrocarbons) and heavy metals. This work is centered on production of lubricating grease using this waste automotive engine oil as base oil before its treatment, after its treatment, its virgin base oil and comparing the three products through analysis as a means of converting this waste automotive engine oil into useful product. However, the production was carried out by reacting 26% concentration of caustic soda solution with calculated quantity of palm oil at 60 o C to form soap. 3% Polypropylene was added and the entire content was later heated up to 180 o C for complete saponification and to melt. Calculated quantities of each of the base oil category was added ,respectively to each of the formulations to form grease.( untreated waste base oil grease, treated waste oil grease and virgin base oil grease respectively).Quality control test was later carried out on the three grease samples. The result was shown on table 4.2.