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News Archive

News about Trevor Gauntlett Consulting from times past...

 

Hydrogen and Viscous Additives

At the start of December Trevor returned to Supply Chain themes in this article for Lubes'n'Greases EMEA, highlighting the problems faced by plant engineers when trying to pump increasingly viscous detergent/inhibitor (DI) packages around their plants.

At around the same time he was participating in the Insider Northern Powerhouse Energy Conference in Liverpool. This was mainly a promotional event for HyNet, but had a common theme of blending hydrogen in hydrocarbon fuel: Cadent wants to do it for domestic and commercial heating and hot water and ULEMCo offers conversion to dual fuel of (diesel) compression ignition engines.

 

11th Annual European Base Oils and Lubricants Summit

This was a stimulating couple of days, with Shell's Gunnar Meister finessing a new Bright Stock replacement to open the meeting. His presentation was ironically in Rotterdam, close to the Pernis Group I plant Shell shut down a few years ago.

Lubrizol, as main sponsor, presented their view of the next 10 years, followed by Sharbel Luzuriaga of the Kline consultancy, who focused on electrification as one of the disrupting forces on the European Base Oils and Lubricants business. And that was all before lunch on day 1!

With subsequent sessions including environmentally friendly, high performance lubricants and IMO 2020 readiness, alongside the more "usual" crankcase specification discussions and regulatory issues, this was two days well-spent with some new friends made and old alliances reinforced.

 

More interesting reading

The impact of IMO 2020 on Lubricants formulating Said to be the biggest change for shipping since steam replaced sail and the biggest issue for refining in decades, what are the effects for the suppliers and formulators of lubricants, particularly in the high volume 2-stroke marine market?

 

Will Blockchain become a factor in Lubricants? (front page) Will this eye-catching disruptor to business have a comparable effect in Lubricants to vehicle electrification, 3D printing or changes in vehicle ownership?

 

White Etch Cracking Sorted?

In September Trevor attended the joint meeting of the Institute of Physics and Institution of Engineering Technology (IoP/IET) in London. Tribological Challenges in the Wind Energy Sector brought together UK-based academics and industrialists from throughout Europe. There was clearly a "vibe" that the causes of so-called white etch cracking (pitting of bearing elements due to rolling contact fatigue) are now fully understood. Whether the issue is resolved for the tens of thousands of wind turbines out in the field with ten or more years of expected (hoped for?) life is a different matter.

 

This conference formed the basis of this 2020 article for Lubes'n'Greases EMEA.

A Busy Summer

After six months of not updating the website, here are a few highlights from the summer of 2019. 

 

Articles for Lubes'n'Greases (Trevor's working titles) on:

Lubricants for Clocks and Watches This was the first article written by Trevor that he knew nothing about at the start. Curiosity drove the research via YouTube videos of how to repair and maintain watch movements through to contacts with some of the brilliant people who do this work.

Thanks to thenakedwatchmaker.com for the stunning image.

 

REACH and its effects on formulation innovation (front page) REACH is perceived by some to be all bad news. Others see it as a business opportunity.

 

August brought a first, with publication of articles by Trevor in both the North American Lubes'n'Greases magazine and Lubes'n'Greases EMEA. 

New Additives Companies on the block How four suppliers have found their niches in the additive package business

The end of metalworking fluids as we know them Summarising four very interesting and provocative presentations at the 6th ICIS & ELGI Industrial Lubricants Conference in Amsterdam.

 

During the summer we also attended the 6th ICIS & ELGI Industrial Lubricants Conference on "Strengthening lubricant performance by focusing on innovative formulation". We made some great contacts, and discovered some new molecules that should find their way into lubricants over the next few years.

 

A Surprise Appearance on Stage

Late March saw Trevor attending the Institute of Engineering Technology's fourth New Challenges in Tribology Conference in Birmingham, UK. As a Chemist, Trevor attended to get a feel for the subject and possibly some interesting ideas for future articles.

There were some interesting presentations - mostly about surface interactions without lubricant - but when on Day 1 a participant ventured that passenger car electrification was insufficiently advanced for Tribologists to consider it at a conference, Trevor intervened and was subsequently invited to the panel discussion on the future of Tribology in the UK at the end of Day 2.

For reader information, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are looking to at least double motor speeds to over 20,000 rpm. The interactions of the driveshaft with its bearings and the loads on gears are therefore much greater and likely to require new surface coatings and new lubricants. The fact that many electric vehicles have a single reduction gear seemed to be unknown to some in the audience. This is true whether the vehicle is a Nissan LEAF or a Tesla and means that the gears are always engaged, possibly leading to failure modes that are not apparent in gears for current automotive applications.

 

A First "Department" in Lubes'n'Greases EMEA

The April edition of Lubes'n'Greases EMEA sees Trevor's first short article under the department title "Everyone's Business" and celebrating the International Year of the Periodic Table, or IYPT 2019.

A Striking Image for the latest article in Lubes'n'Greases EMEA

One of Trevor's favourite images to enhance his article in the February 2019 Lubes'n'Greases EMEA on nanoscale tungsten disulphide.

23rd ICIS World Base Oils and Lubricants Conference

We attended this conference in London in February 2019. Among the interesting speakers was Stephen Ames of SBA Consulting (a company without a website), who gave a striking presentation on the likely impact of the forthcoming implementation of MARPOL Annexe VI, Regulation 14, otherwise known as IMO 2020 after the International Maritime Organisation and the date of implementation. More on this will appear in the blog.

Lubes'n'Greases Perspective on Electric Vehicles

Well, he may not have received a by-line, but Trevor is proud of the 25 pages he wrote in the first Lubes'n'Greases Perspective on Electric Vehicles. This has been followed in February with a two-page article in the second quarterly report (no link available yet) on Coolants in Electric Vehicles.

More Innovative Chemistry

The January 2019 edition of Lubes'n'Greases EMEA once again features Trevor's article as its front-page artwork.  The serious innovation behind the flippant title resulted in a completely new application for an existing product, enabling metalworking fluids formulators to access a completely new, REACH-compliant, non-toxic extreme pressure additive that also facilitates parts cleaning.

First article in F+L Magazine focuses on Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Trevor's first article on Fuels features the road towards Sustainable Aviation Fuel and was written prior to several product launches and major events, such as Virgin Atlantic's first commercial flight on sustainable aviation fuel. If the actual magazine link doesn't work (it may be behind a paywall), here's a link to the HTML version, which doesn't have Trevor's by-line.

Wood-based greases?

Another front page on Lubes'n'Greases EMEA.  This month Trevor asks whether the next generation of (sustainable) grease thickeners might come from recycled plastics or up-cycled forest products. The image is of lithium salt flats.

Lubes Counterfeiting

Lubes'n'Greases EMEA once again features Trevor's article as its front-page artwork.  This month he's looking at counterfeiting of lubricants, an enormous problem in almost every developing country, where cheating can bring bigger financial rewards than employment.

IATF 16949:2016 implementation

The September article in Lubes'n'Greases EMEA asks a few small questions about why the Lubricants industry is so coy about meeting the deadlines for IATF 16949:2016 implementation on September 14th. As Trevor writes on his LinkedIn post "One of the more difficult articles I've written, because my sources either wouldn't talk to me or asked not to be identified."

First article on UL prospector

Here's a link to a review of corrosion inhibitors written by Trevor with a few nice links to products from the "sponsors" (not a requirement of writing the article, but a nice exercise in knowing what is available).

If it's August, it must be Alkylated Naphthalenes

There's more novel chemistry if you follow the link to an article in Lubes'n'Greases EMEA looking at the benefits of alkylated naphthalenes in Lubricants formulations.

More Networking. This time in Fuels

Early July saw us visit Sustainable Aviation for Clean Growth, a workshop sponsored by United Kingdom's Knowledge Transfer Network. This forum, and the monthly webcasts KTN supports, shows what an enormous amount of new chemistry is being developed to convert wastes or other sustainable starting materials into liquid fuels. 

 

Watch out from some fuels-related articles from our team and note that this is a global activity, it is just that the UK is at the forefront of support.

Another Supply Chain article published in Lubes 'n' Greases EMEA July 2018

Here's the link to an article by Trevor about the different ways in which Supply Chain and other professionals think of the simple word Handling. 

Back on the road in June

It was great to resume networking in June at the 2018 International Business Festival in Liverpool and the 5th ICIS & ELGI Industrial Lubricants Conference in Amsterdam. We made some really good contacts in Amsterdam, and were so busy, Trevor only made one LinkedIn post.

It was particularly pleasing to see Biosynthetic Technologies present in numbers at the 5th ICIS & ELGI Industrial Lubricants Conference and to see a presentation by Nanotech Industrial Solutions, reflecting developments highlighted by Trevor in articles (complete with cover art-work) over the last few months about novel base fluids (or routes to existing ones) from natural products and nanotechnology.

Nanomaterials article is the seventh published in Lubes 'n' Greases EMEA, May 2018

Here's the link to an article by Trevor about nanomaterials as Lubricants additives. This is the second consecutive article for which the art-work features on the cover.

The Spring 2018 edition of Chemicals northwest's "Elements" magazine contains an article on page 35 entitled "New and existing member pitches over breakfast". Among those pitches was one from Trevor at the Chemicals northwest Breakfast in February.

We added a new Case Study on April 13th 2018. Hopefully not unlucky for some.

More novel chemistry in the fifth article in Lubes 'n' Greases EMEA March 2018

Here's the link to an article by Trevor about new Renewable Base Fluids and new routes from renewable sources to existing base fluids.  Some parts of this article had previously been published on the blogs on this site. This was followed at the end of March by an unintended tribute article by Mary Moon in American Lubes'n'Greases.

Article on Ionic Liquids published in Lubes 'n' Greases EMEA February 2018

Here's the link to the first of several planned articles on new chemistry that could impinge on Lubes in the future.

(An almost) Well-travelled poster

Chemicals North West Breakfast, 1st February 2018

Trevor will be introducing the Consultancy and presenting the poster below on Business Continuity Planning for Chemicals users.

The poster was accepted for Fuels & Lubes Week in Macao in March, but unfortunately Trevor is now unable to travel to present the poster.

 

Third article published in Lubes 'n' Greases EMEA January 2018

Here's the link to the second part of the Supply Chain security article.

First part of a two-parter becomes the second article published in Lubes 'n' Greases EMEA December 2017

Here's the link to the first part of a two-parter Trevor tentatively entitled "How secure is your Supply Chain?"

First article published in Lubes 'n' Greases EMEA October 2017

Here's the link to Trevor's first article about the confusion surrounding certain acronyms for chemicals used in Lubricants.

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