What is Oil Filtration
By Dennis Morgan
What Kind of Filtration to Choose?
The filtration marketplace is filled with a multitude of choices for purifying oil. Often this multitude of choices can be mind-numbing for the filtration consumer and lead to "analysis paralysis". Many times customers can't help but wonder - "What is the difference?"
In spite of the potential difficulty in choosing an appropriate method of oil purification, cleaning the oil in the system does have substantial benefits that are relatively easy to calculate using the known equipment cost, known maintenance costs and oil replacement costs. If oil purification only doubles the life of the oil, the cost savings are obvious - the cost associated with one oil changeout. Many times, oil purification will extend the life of the oil many times and as a result will extend the life of the equipment substantially as well so cost savings can be significant. These charts published by Noria Corporation in the January - February 2008 edition of Machinery Lubrication (page 22) demonstrate the potential life extention of equipment by improving the cleanliness level of the oil.
The biggest reason to purify oil is to maximize the return on the investment in the oil. Keeping the oil clean also has the benefit of extending equipment life. Equipment owners should be using oil analysis to monitor condition of the oil and equipment and to determine when the oil should be replaced. When oil analysis is not being used and the oil is being replaced on a "time in service" basis only, many industries experts believe that at least 70% of that oil is being changed for contamination and not because the useful life of the oil has been used up. In other words, if the oil was just cleaned, it would still be useful. This is especially true for select, high quality base oil with enhanced, proprietary additive chemistry lubricants which tend to have a very long useful life.
So the question is - "What kind of filtration?" This question can be difficult to answer without some level of expertise and many people get frustrated that it isn't simpler. The difficulty stems from several inter-related factors, including; Oil Viscosity, Operating Temperature, Oil Type, Contamination Type, Contamination Level, How fast the oil is being contaminated, Equipment Type, Enviromental Contraints and on and on. Sometimes issues are not obvious and will arise during the process. Sometimes it is unknown if ANY solution will work and testing will be required first.
There are many choices. Let's first look at what some of the common choices are then discuss what solutions apply to what situations.
