Biodegradeable Oil

[BXTotal]

The amount of misinformation that gets posted to the site is pretty frustrating.

Mineral oil is biodegradable only in the sense that if you wait long enough everything breaks down. It can take years or longer for the most toxic components to break down in the environment. Once mineral oil is deep in the soil it is essentially permanent.

Biodegradable lubrication products meet standards for how long they take to break down in the environment. Generally the time to break down is a tiny fraction of what would be required for mineral oil.

Beyond this, the biodegradable lube products are usually (not always) much less toxic than the mineral equivalent. Check the MSDS. Almost any petroleum distillate will have cancer causing components. This is generally not the case for biodegradable equivalents.

Finally, mineral oil in you tractor will kill your lawn and destroy wetlands when it leaks. Bio-hygard does not cause either of these problems.

 

[John Morgan]

I got news for you, all oil is bio-degradable.

HS

There is even more confusion out there about bio-degradable oils than standard oils. Houstonscott is right, all oils including synthetics are inherently biodegradable. Thats a scientific designation referring to the amount of time it takes to degrade. Readily biodegradable fluids are identified by their ability to biodegrade by at least 60% over a period of time (usually 21 days or 28 days). Typically, with a spill, the heat from the fluid causes the death patches in vegitation. The hot bio-degradable fluids will also kill the vegitation. The real advantage to readily bio-degradable fluids is remediation is considerably less expensive. However, remediation is still required.

Since your string asks specifically about UTF, Schaeffer's Ecoshield Simplex biodegradable UTHF will meet your needs. My guess is it will be price competitive as most of the biodegradable fluids I come across are very expensive.

If you want to research the Schaeffer site to get the info for yourself, On the right side of the home page click MSDS/TD then scroll down to product 515 for all the information.

 

[BXTotal]

I did a quick google search for Biodegradation Rates for components of lubricating oil. The first hit I got showed biological half lives up to 500 days for various types of PAH compounds found in refined oil products. These numbers are for typical types of surface contamination environments. Lee & Ryan, 1983; Heitcamp & Cerniglia, 1987; Sims, 1986; Niimi & Palasso,1986.

I think if you spend 10 minutes with google you will find plenty of peer reviewed publications showing that many of the the most harmful components of lubricating oil degrade over years or even slower in typical spill scenarios.

I worked (briefly) at one of the larger North American oil refineries. The entire facility (all 1000 acres) had wells around the perimeter. At each well, pumps ran 24/7 pulling contaminated water out of the ground, separating the contaminates from the oil and pumping clean water back into the ground. Most of the contamination at this site happened decades ago. The oil is still in the ground and is still hazardous. If the pumps were stopped, the oil at this site would migrate to drinking water supplies for neighboring towns.

It is easy to mislead people by playing games with semantics. The reality is that contamination due to dumping and leaks of lubricating oil is a huge problem. More than once on this site, I have seen posters encourage careless behavior with used oil. Telling people that "oil is biodegradable" just confuses the issue and encourages irresponsible behavior.

 

[RalphVa]

The only thing in oil that doesn't biodegrade is metallic compounds that some additives may have. Otherwise, I agree with the previous poster(s). All oil is bio degradable. Like almost anything though, you overload the bio system with too much or too high a concentration of it, you temporarily kill the bugs that will "bio" it.

Ralph

 

[clemsonfor]

agreed. Glass and stryrofoam will break down and return to nature.
But were talking thousands of years in the case of glass i beleive. He didnt say dump it and your fine,or that it wont hurt anything today or for the next 20 years.

 

[MHarryE]

Selection and use of bio-based hydraulic fluids

not sure if the attached link will work but if you go to Hydraulics Pneumatics: Welcome and do a search on bio oil, you will find a lot of articles on bio hydraulic oil but one titled "Selection and use of bio-based hydraulic oils" is a pretty good summary. Mineral-based hydraulic fluid is about 25 to 35% biodegradable in standard 28-day tests. Vegetable based fluids are 90 to 98% biodegradable in these same tests. The good bio oils are expensive, but they have many advantages over regular mineral oil besides being bio. The only places I have seen bio oil used have been places where it is required by law or by the customer who demands that all equipment used on their site be bio friendly. Scandanavian countries are particularly sensitive, and their requirements before a machine can enter the country can be rigid. I remember one test we needed to meet was have an oil sample from the machine tested by their specified lab and that oil must contain no more than 3% mineral oil. Even the components like hydro pumps we purchased have residual oil that makes it difficult to meet the law even with first factory fill being bio oil.

Everybody has probably seen the pictures of dead fish from spills like the Gulf oil spill and the spill this summer in Michigan. They say the good bio oils will not harm fish but I can't believe they will like swimming through it. Still like all oil it will quickly float to the top and the fish can swim through it and stay below and alive.