Grease Industry: A Microcosm of the Chinese Economy

Business Society chemical analyst Yang Xun: Since China became the world's largest grease producer in 2006, China's grease production has continued to increase. In 2009, nearly 40% of the world's grease was produced in China. Of these, about 38% are used for automobiles and farm implements. At present, China's auto industry is in a period of rapid development, so the future of vehicle grease will be a rapidly growing market; mining, steel, metallurgy and other industries has always been the main application of grease, the amount of 30% to 35%, The demand for grease is the highest among all industries. At present, the high-performance, high-drop point grease products in these industries are mostly produced by foreign companies such as Meifu and Shell; the textile and printing and dyeing industries are fields that use high-grade grease. Most of the textile and printing and dyeing machinery are imported equipment. They have extremely high requirements on the quality of grease. The industry's high-temperature and high-performance greases are basically all imported products. In addition, China's national defense modernization process has accelerated, and new cutting-edge technologies have been developed. * Equipment and weapons systems are increasingly demanding greases and need ** greases for harsh environments such as extreme high temperatures, low temperatures, high vacuum, and radiation. In short, with the increasing demand for grease quality in China, it is imperative to develop high-end grease products.

Shen Qiying, a teacher at the Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology: The organization represented by the American Petroleum Institute, the International Lubricant Standardization and Approval Committee and the European Automobile Manufacturers Association has always led the development of international lubricant standards. The lubricant standards that these organizations participate in represent The latest development trend of international standards. After the introduction of new product specifications, specifications that are relatively backward in technology are eliminated or repealed. Therefore, European and American production companies must continue to integrate their existing products, optimize their product mix, introduce new specifications, eliminate old products, and quickly raise the level of standards, while simultaneously stimulating product quality levels to increase in order to occupy the international market. Competitive Advantage. China's grease product quality and technical standards are still relatively low, and grease standards should gradually be brought into line with international standards, starting with technical standards to improve product quality.

CNPC Lanzhou Lubricant Research and Development Center Zhang Longhua: There is still a big gap in China's use of advanced large-scale instrumentation equipment to evaluate and evaluate the performance of greases. Infrared spectroscopy, differential thermal analysis, chromatographic analysis, spectral analysis, and differential analysis are widely used in foreign countries. Large scale instruments such as scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, and electron microscopy are used to analyze the structure and properties of greases, especially for the evaluation of the application performance of foreign greases, and the evaluation of grease flowability and the evaluation of high temperature performance of mechatronics greases are established. , grease oxidation stability and bearing life-related evaluation, automotive constant velocity joint friction characteristics of the evaluation test methods and equipment. Due to the lack of standards and equipment for the evaluation of grease performance in China, the development and improvement of new grease products are greatly restricted.

Zhang Tiansheng, Professor, School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University of Science and Technology: As the awareness of environmental protection continues to deepen, the trend toward the development of environmentally-friendly grease products is increasingly clear. The composition of the grease is mainly base oil (70% to 90%), thickener (10% to 20%), and additive (10% or less). Grease is made by adding a thickener to the base oil to make it solid or semi-solid, and adding some additives to improve performance. As the main component of grease, the type of base oil is mainly the mineral oil separated from petroleum, and some of the greases use synthetic lubricating oil or natural vegetable oil as the base oil, but the output is not great. The biggest disadvantage of mineral base oils is poor biodegradability. The hazardous substances such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons contained in the process of the use of grease, due to infiltration, leakage and spillage into the environment cause pollution, damage to the ecological environment, and endanger human health. In recent years, the demand for environmentally friendly greases in developed countries has been growing steadily. This aspect comes from the government's policy of requiring the use of environmentally-friendly greases, and on the other hand the user's requirements for environmentally-friendly lubricants. Foreign countries are actively conducting the research and development of environment-friendly grease products, and they have developed rapidly. Some environmentally friendly grease products have been developed. China's research in this area is relatively backward and there is little investment in the research of environment-friendly greases. There are no relevant standards and regulations for environmentally friendly grease products. Our country needs to speed up the research and promotion of the use of environmentally friendly grease products so as to avoid taking the old road of pollution after other industries first.

Zhuo Chuang Information Chemicals Analyst Yang Tingting: Since the implementation of the EU REACH Regulation, it has had an impact on companies in the European Union and with the EU. Large foreign oil companies and lubricant companies have established specialized agencies to coordinate the company's REACH related matters. Relevant manufacturers in Europe also set up a European REACH grease thickener cooperation agency in 2006. The agency currently has 46 companies. As a third-party agency, the agency is responsible for collecting information on the physical and chemical toxicity of grease thickeners and sharing them among companies. At present, many related manufacturers of grease in Europe and the United States have conducted pre-registration or formal registration of products. However, Chinese enterprises have not yet obtained a company's pre-registration due to lack of physical and chemical toxicity data. "There is no market without data," which is the grim situation faced by China's lubricant exporters in exporting products to the EU.