Development of an extremely efficient Iraqi nano-lubricating oil (Base-60) employing SiO2 and Al2O3 nanoparticles

The Iraqi refineries produced a wide range of lubricating oils. The specification and lifetime of these lubricants required more evaluation and enhancement to achieve the high quality. In this work, the rheological properties of lubricating oil base stock-60 were enhanced using SiO2 NPs and Al2O3 NPs as nano-additives. The concentration of each NPs was 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1 wt.% under sonication conditions of 45min. The specifications of lubricating oil were tested at operating temperatures of 40 and 100oC. Moreover, the results showed that the kinematic viscosity of nano-lubricant is highly affected by the concentration of nanoparticles and operating temperature. Accordingly, the flashpoint was increased with nano-additive increase. For SiO2 NPs concentrations of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1 wt.% the flashpoint enhanced by 5.042%, 6.612%, 8.502%, and 10.67% respectively, while, for Al2O3 NPs provided values of 4.237%, 5.04%, 7%, and 9.63%, respectively. Furthermore, it was observed that when the concentration value NPs increased, the pour point temperature values were reduced significantly. The prepared nano-lubricants provide new efficient lubricity specifications, long operating time for the internal combustion engines.