Purpose This paper aims to present a comprehensive perspective on how tribology and sustainability are related and intertwined and are linked to CO2 emissions. This paper emphasizes on how tribological aspects affect everybody’s life and how tribological research and progress can improve energy efficiency, sustainability and quality of life. Design/methodology/approach Based upon available data and predictions for the next 50 years, the potential of tribological research and development is addressed. Findings The effects of tribological design can significantly increase energy savings and reduce CO2 emissions. Taking advantage of tribological technologies and applying them to current infrastructure would have the largest energy savings coming from the transportation and power generation at 25% and 20%, respectively. Implementing these technologies can also cut down global CO2 emissions by about 1,460 megatons of CO2 per year in the immediate future and 3,140 megatons of CO2 per year in the long term. The extraction and processing of resources inevitably generates CO2. Doubling the lifetime of machine components and the use of circular economy reduces the material footprint with associated reductions in CO2. Originality/value This perspective summarizes concisely the interrelation of tribology and sustainability with CO2. Peer review The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-09-2020-0356/
The term “lubricity” is used to assess a fuel's ability to reduce the friction between contact surfaces under applied loads. Furthermore, the reduction of sulfur (a natural lubricating agent) in diesel fuel oil by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency makes it necessary to treat these fuels with lubricity enhancement agents and to monitor their effect. Without these additives, fuels would induce wear on a wide range of moving parts in the fuel injection system (pumps, injectors, etc.). As a result, it is important to quantify the lubricating properties of fuels and to monitor the effects of blend stocks and additives on fuels. Due to the compositional changes of fuels and the need to introduce lubricity improvement agents into fuels, ASTM D6079 has proven to be a robust and reliable test method to measure and monitor the lubricity of diesel fuel. This paper discusses ASTM D6079 and the lubricity requirements per ASTM D975. This paper also investigates recent advancements made involving HFRR instrumentation when used as a lubricity condition monitoring tool and evaluates the accuracy of these instruments through testing with standardized reference fluids.
This paper explores the method by which lubricating oils that are used in power plants are maintained. Lubricants were shown to protect the tribological systems of power plant equipment through their physical and chemical properties and are key to maintaining the power plant's uptime and profitability. A comprehensive review of developing a condition monitoring program is provided. Proper tribodiagnostics of lubricants allow a power plant to predictively maintain the integrity of its equipment to maximize cost savings. The data collected from a successful condition monitoring program can show trends that provide insight into future diagnostics. The integration of artificial intelligence has become increasingly prevalent in condition monitoring systems and continues to be an avenue for future advancement in this field.
Due to environmental concerns and cost issues, coal is currently being phased out from usage in electricity production. Regardless, there remains a massive stockpile of coal reserves along with a large industrial complex and a robust distribution/processing infrastructure. As such, coal should be considered for usage in other energy areas. Since coal is simply a solid hydrocarbon, it can be converted over for usage as a transportation fuel. The Fischer-Tropsch process that underlies this conversion is well established with some countries like South Africa currently using it at large scales. Unfortunately, this conversion process has a large carbon footprint, even when using carbon capture technology. However, the blending of coal-based fuels with biodiesel has been found to be more carbon neutral than standard diesel or biodiesel alone. Additionally, coal can be used as an alternate to methane for hydrogen production. Given carbon capture technologies and the existing coal infrastructure, these two uses of coal provide opportunities for a sustainable and economical use of coal as a transportation fuel.
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