Lubrication products used in certain applications are subjected to much harsher conditions or higher temperatures than others. By choosing products specifically designed for challenging circumstances, you can protect your equipment, improve performance, and save on maintenance and repair costs.

This is why Lubrication Engineers (LE) believes in continuously improving its products and creating solutions for particular applications. “For example, LE developed our 1250 Almasol High Temperature Lubricant with a clay thickener system, which has one of the highest temperature capabilities of any grease thickener technology currently available in the industry,” explains Callum Ford, National Marketing Manager at LE South Africa. “Bearings operating in or near heat-generating equipment are subject to temperatures that cause ordinary greases to melt and run, leaving critical bearing surfaces unprotected.”

Almasol High Temperature Lubricant is designed to withstand high temperatures, staying in place to provide constant lubrication. It also resists oxidation and vaporization. By ensuring longer lubrication intervals and fewer bearing failures, Ford says, Almasol High Temperature Lubricant helps contribute to increased production and a healthier bottom line.

It uses a base oil with a heavy viscosity and high flashpoint, as well as a high natural viscosity index. “The high temperature thickener has a high dropping point, which is why this product is ideal for applications such as asphalt plants, brick/ceramic kilns, exhaust fans, kiln car bearings, lime kilns, oven conveyors, pellet mills, plastics and soot blowers,” says Ford. “Almasol is the solid wear-reducing additive in the product, which is able to withstand extremely heavy loads, chemical attack and temperatures up to 1,038°C.”

The maximum useful lifetime for a grease in high temperature bearings depends on many factors, from temperature to the size and speed of bearing, the amount of oxygen available to the grease in the bearing, the load on the bearing and the degree of external contamination.

The approximate maximum useful lifetime guidelines for LE’s 1250 Almasol High Temperature Lubricant are 10 000 hours at 93°C, 100 hours 149°C and between one and four hours at 204°C.

“Lubrication interval recommendations for LE’s 1250 Almasol High Temperature Lubricant are much lower than the maximum useful lifetimes,” Ford says. “This is because normal bearing relubrication practices replenish only a relatively small portion of the grease and the bulk of the grease in the bearing, at any given time period, has been there for a much longer time than the lubrication interval.”