Our oil lab has recommended we use a Electrostatic Filtration system to reduce precursors and varnish from our turbine lube oil. Has and anyone used this technology and what vendors are the most successful? For those who have use this technology how successful was this process and what was the cost?

Here is a good system to consider:
http://www.isopurfluid.com/

I was at a presentation by the inventor of this technology.

I neither use nor sell these products.

Walt

The isopur is called balanced charge agglomeration (BCA). Do we really need a contaminant-free fluid? Is the cost-benefit justifiable?

The isopur can get rid of small contaminants which forms up to 50% of total. Do we really need to get rid of these small contaminants?

quote:

Electrostatic Filtration system

I remember seeing a news release this summer regading this... not familiar with the company but seemed interesting.
http://www.oilkleen.com/press/?m=200607

Would to hear comments on the necessity of filtering submicron contaminants:

Excerpt: We now know that the tolerances in these components is extremely small. Now let's take a look at the typical composition of oil contamination (graphs provided by Noria Corporation):



These curves reveal two things:

1. The disproportional concentration of contaminants in the 0.1 to 5 micron range. In fact over 50% of contamination occurs in this range.

2. The disproportional hardness of these 0.1 to 5 micron particles.

If we now marry the facts about component clearances to the facts about the prevalence of small destructive particles, it means that traditional mechanical filtration fails to remove the vast majority of the destructive particles circulating through high-performance machinery.



http://www.isopurfluid.com/submicron.htm

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

Comparison between Isopur & EP:

EPs can be very effective at removing small particles, and can also boast of removing sub-micron particles. As a result, they have achieved a niche following in some markets.

However, EPs have three major issues:

Water Sensitivity. EP units are highly sensitive to water, generally having problems when the water content exceeds a meager 0.5%. Water in the system can cause shorts between the charging electrodes and collection plates. To accommodate this problem, EPs sometimes have a bypass mode that effectively shuts down the unit when the water content increases.

Flow Rates. For a variety of technical reasons, EPs are flow-rate limited. Most EPs operate at or below 1.0 gallon per minute, with the highest flow versions coming in at 2.8 gallons per minute.

Cleaning Efficiency. EPs collect particulate on a polar collection plate. As the plate collects particles, the efficiency of the plate decreases over time.

http://www.isopurfluid.com/compete.htm

A few years ago, I was present when the inventor of electrostatic filteration spoke in a meeting. I remember to have him say that EP filteration was superior to mechanical filteration in removing particulates. Last week some people representing "Kleentek" EP filteration system called on me to sell their product. They were only highligting the varnish removal capability of Kleentek. When I asked them about particulate removal, they were not too sure. They just said that it was possible that very small particles would be removed. Would any of you clarify whether "Kleentek" removes particulates in addition to varnish. If particulates are removed, the size of the particulates being filtered. Thanks.

OILKLEEN technology works on the simple laws of physics and we have 16 electrostatic fields versus Kleentek which has 1. OILKLEEN has the fastest and most efficeint system in the world. To answer the question about particle removal and varnish, the answer is yes. OILKLEEN can clean oil to the molecule level. We have produced ISO codes of 9/4/1 on turbine oil before. The reason is simple, a molecule will take an electrical charge just as a large dirt particle will. Then it will bond in our collection media and be removed from the oil.

Please look at www.oilkleen.com for more information

Paul Jarvis
President
OILKLEEN INTERNATIONAL, Inc.
480.556.1520

Paul, the website claims to the product to be the fastest in filtering but up to how many microns of particle size it can filter? Up to 5 microns?

This technology will filter from sub-micron 0.01 micron to very large particles the size of things you can see in your hand. The reason is that even a sub-micron particle and a chunk of sludge will take an electrical charge once it is in the electrostatic fields.

One thing to remember if your system is really dirty and particle counts are extremely high you may want to pre filter since replaceable electrostatic cartridges are more expensive.

However, the OILKLEEN cartridge can remove up to 10 pounds of material before you need to replace it.

Paul Jarvis
OILKLEEN

Is OIlKleen product equivalent to or better than the Isopur product?

We feel that the electrostatic technology of OILKLEEN is far superior to IsoPur. The reason is very simple, ISOPur charges the particles in your lubrication system and makes them grow in size. This happens by the laws of physics equally in the system, and therefore will cause particles to grow before the servo, inside the servo, causing plugging and damage to tight tolerance components.

OILKLEEN technology actually makes particles smaller and all removal of foreign contamination happens in the electrostatic chamber. There is nothing that happens in the system except the oil absorbing varnish build-up and then these sub-micron particles are removed in the OILKLEEN system.

I highly recommend electrostatic vs. agglomeration. We dont want to make contamination larger, do we?

Paul Jarvis

by the way we manufacture 2 machines right now and here are the flow rates:

OILKLEEN 500 ......500 US gallons per hour flow rate
OILKLEEN 250.......250 US gallons per hour flow rate


Paul Jarvis

oilkleen500front.jpg (89 Kb, 4 downloads) OILKLEEN 500

This is the first I have heard of the subject. I am a little skeptical that it's necessary but I don't have much basis. A few rambling thoughts to consider...

Certainly the sensitivity to small particles will depend on the application.

For bearings, it is often said that the worst possible size particle is on the order of the same size as the minimum oil film. If particles are much larger, they won't be drawn into the oil film but will instead flow around somehow (flow axially in the distribution groove of sleeve bearing or be pushed out of the way of ball bearing). If particles are much smaller, they will pass through the minimum oil film without causing a problem. If particles are about the size of the minimum oil film, they will be drawn in and cause wear. At least that's the traditional wisdom... and I think I remember seeing related test data on Noria.

For sleeve bearings, this minimum film clearance distance might be on the order of a mil or more (25 microns or more). Mechanical filtration it would seem would do fine.

For rolling bearings, this distance is said to be on the order of 0.5 microns. If these particles are truly destructive, they are smaller than what would be removed by most mechanical filtration.

Electricpete

First I would like to explore what is the smallest particle size that can be removed by our existing filteration technology (whatever type).

Second, you mentioned minimum oil film (thickness) required for rolling and sleeve bearings. How to know this? Is this normally specified in pump datasheet?

most tolerances in hydraulic components, pump, servo valves, and control systems are less than 2 micron in size. This is why in large power plants varnish can cause the system to trip/ or plug the servo valve and restrict flow to important components and cause systems to operate with jumpy movements.

filter pugging can be caused by varnish also. Electrostatic filtration can remove all particle to 0.01 micron in size.

absolute mechanical filtration can remove to 1-5 micron in size with many passes.

centrifuges can remove particulate down to 10 micron.

normal mechanical filtration is good to 5-25 micron in size.

electrostatic oil cleaning is the only technology that can remove oxidation by-products from oil, which can dramatically extend the life of the oil.

Paul

I think Paul covered capabilities well.

To address the question: where did the film thicknesses come from. Here is one source:

http://www.machinerylubrication.com/article_detail.asp?...okgroup=Lubrication2
"Also, the minimum film thicknesses [for EHD lub in rolling element bearings] tend to be many times smaller geometrically than for hydrodynamic lubrication films (typically 5 um compared to 100 um)"

His numbers are a little higher than me. As for sliding bearings, some smaller machines might have 6 mils diametrical clearnce, 3 mils radial clearance (when perfectly centered), so obviously less than 4 mil (100 um) minimum clearance when operating. The exact thickness for sliding bearings decreases with decreasing viscosity, decreasing speed, increasing load.

For rolling bearings, I'm sure I have seen 1 micron and 0.5 micron for typical film thickness. Let me look a little more.

SKF publication 5073 - "Bearing Knowhow for Rewinders" seems to say the film on rolling bearings is less than 1 micron and typically 0.5 micron. Here is a quote from that document:

"The oil film which separates the rolling elements and the raceway is less than 0,001 mm thick. This very thin film is the difference between success and catastrophe – if it is not there, the bearing will fail prematurely. Consider the following relative sizes:
• Paper clip: ~0,8 mm (0,032 inches)
• Human hair: ~0,05 mm (0,002 inches)
• Clearance in an unmounted 6310/C3: ~0,03 mm (0,0012 inches)
• Dirt particle: ~0,005 mm (0,0002 inches)
• Oil film: ~0,0005 mm (0,00002 inches)"

ISOPur, Kleentek and several other companies supply machinery for what is being called "electrostatic cleaning". All of these technologies work, we feel our works best. We are not alone in this appraisal of the technologies, because GE chose Balanced Charge Agglomeration as the technology they sell and install on their systems after testing all competing companies.

What do these technologies do? Ours removes submicron particles from oil, that's all. When submicron particles are removed, the resulting pure oil acts as a solvent to remove varnish from the surface of the lubrication and/or hydraulic system. This frees the spool valves so that they operate reliably without sticking. The pure oil also removes the sludge from the system. If the additives are kept at the proper levels, the oil may last forever. We know of a turbine system with our BCA technology that has over 8 years on the same oil, and it is cleaner than new oil.

What is the difference in an ISOPur BCA system? We use a positive and negative charge system to place a charge on the oil. The resulting large particles are captured in 3 to 6 micron filters. Other electrostatic systems collect particles on the electrodes. the electrodes require periodic cleaning. In the ISOPur system you just change the filter.

Does it plug up your valves and bearings? We have no reports of this happening. Some agglomeration continues to take place after our filter and this is captured in other system filters. Our system can cause all filters to work more efficiently, so they will fill faster.

Check out the pictures from a plant in Thailand on our website at http://www.isopur.com/press.htm

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ray Gomes,