Ventilation, temperature measurement, temperature increase, temperature decrease… The test was successful! On March 16, good news came from the trial of the ashless additive device at Kunlun Lubricant’s Lanzhou R&D facility: through the active efforts and breakthroughs of the research staff, the borated ashless dispersant was successfully discharged from the reactor. The smooth completion of this trial overturned previous production experience, broke through the technical bottleneck of Kunlun Lubricant’s core additives, and laid a solid foundation for the independent technological upgrading of Kunlun Lubricant.
Problems never become stumbling blocks for researchers; they only inspire their determination to break through and innovate.
At the beginning of 2022, news came from the Lanzhou Additive Plant: starting in January 2022, the manufacturer of the key additive, borated dispersant, used to formulate a certain compound would stop supplying it. This additive is a single-source product, and there is currently less than three months’ inventory. Once the supply is cut off, it will inevitably cause irreparable losses. The oil products blended with this compound are exclusively supplied to a certain Automobile Group Co., Ltd. As an important OEM customer of the lubricants company, the ability to ensure timely supply is of great significance to the company’s maintenance of its OEM customer relationship. Kunlun Lubricants must resolve the replacement of this additive within three months.
Timely addressing the urgent needs of production and the market is the responsibility of scientific researchers.
After learning about this situation, Lü Huiying, Secretary of the Party Committee of Kunlun Lubricants’ Lanzhou R&D Center, decided to designate the project as a Lanzhou R&D Science and Technology Talent Studio project. Huang Qing, a young scientific and technological talent from the Group Company, was appointed as the project leader to organize relevant personnel in the fields of ashless dispersants, gear oils, and analytical testing to carry out a special research effort, with a solution required by the end of March.
Subsequently, the project team acted swiftly, carrying out sampling, testing, structural analysis, and composition analysis. They found that the structure of this borated dispersant was unique, with significant differences in its infrared characteristic absorption peaks compared with the products currently in use by the company and the imported products of the same type, meaning it could not be used as a substitute. With this approach proving unfeasible, independent technological development became the only option.
Time is money, and efficiency is life. To accelerate the R&D progress, Huang Qing led the project team members in intensive research, solution discussions, and other work throughout the Spring Festival, and designed and formulated multiple sets of solutions.
On February 7, the first day after the Spring Festival, the project team began working continuously around the clock on various tasks: synthesis tests, synthesis process optimization, repeated scale-up tests, and comparative evaluation of the product in composite agents and finished oils.
On February 25, laboratory development was completed, and the Lanzhou R&D project review was passed.
During the project pilot-testing stage, since this was the first time the company had conducted a pilot test in Lanzhou and the operating conditions were scaled up 10,000 times compared with those in the laboratory, any accident could result in unforeseeable safety incidents and economic losses amounting to several hundred thousand yuan. Therefore, controlling safety risks became the top priority. To ensure that the risks were fully controllable, the project team and the additive manufacturer held multiple discussions on the pilot-testing plan, established a safety assessment team, fully implemented safety prevention and control measures, and revised and reviewed the pilot-testing plan several times.
On March 14, the industrial testing project team was established, and the testing began that day, with everything proceeding in an orderly manner.
On the evening of March 15, the temperature increase for the boronization reaction was underway. Suddenly, the exhaust gas temperature began rapidly approaching the temperature of the reaction materials. This had never occurred in previous laboratory experiments. Based on experience, when the difference between the exhaust gas temperature and the reaction temperature is less than 15°C, the reaction vessel will overflow, and all previous efforts will be wasted. At the time, the foam level in the reaction could not be directly observed on site, so the exhaust gas temperature difference became the key parameter for determining whether the reaction vessel would overflow. However, after heating was stopped when the temperature difference approached 15°C, the exhaust gas temperature quickly decreased; once heating was resumed, the exhaust gas temperature rapidly approached the reaction temperature again.
At this point, without heating, the designed reaction temperature could not be reached, while heating would very likely cause the reactor to boil over. Faced with this dilemma, Huang Qing, based on laboratory observations and many years of experience synthesizing ashless dispersants, proposed introducing nitrogen for stripping and heating slowly, while closely monitoring the temperature difference before and after tail-gas condensation, to ensure the safe progress of the test.
Through repeated trials, the industrial test was successfully completed while ensuring safe and stable operation and maintaining a minimum temperature difference of 4.6℃ between the two, ultimately yielding an industrial product that met the acceptance criteria. The treatment plan used during the production process also provided valuable experience for future production.
The path of scientific research is never smooth; only through persistent dedication and arduous effort can success ultimately be achieved.
From the establishment of the research team to the completion of laboratory product development and the successful industrialization of the product, it took only two months. The Kunlun Lubricants R&D team created a miracle in R&D speed through its capabilities.
The rapid breakthrough in the independent technology development of boron-containing ashless dispersants not only ensures the supply of OEM oils, but also serves as a practical test of the Kunlun R&D team’s concrete efforts to pursue technological breakthroughs from a high-level, broad perspective, strengthen market leadership, and proactively integrate into an integrated production–research–marketing mechanism.
Going forward, Kunlun Lubricants will continue to stay closely attuned to the market, remain problem-oriented and results-oriented, delve deeply into the market, resources, and products, effectively implement the transformation of science and technology into productive forces as a driving force, and strive to write a new chapter in high-quality development.
