Determination of Wear Metals in Lubrication Oils: A Comparison Study of ICP-OES and FAAS

Abstract

Certain wear metals (Fe, Cr, Ni, Cu and Zn) of various lubrication oils were determined by means of ICP-OES and FAAS. The kerosene dilution method, which is used widely together with ICP-OES, was applied with both methods here. Calibration standards were made from a commercial organo-metallic standard. Our aim was to clarify the possibility of using the quick kerosene dilution method together with FAAS for a rapid check for certain indicator metals. Metal determinations with FAAS were accurate enough for quantitative work in machine condition diagnostics and waste oil characterization, when compared with those with ICP-OES.

The determination of trace metals in lubricating oils by atomic spectrometry

“…More robust and less susceptible to noise atomic absorption techniques have been successfully and extensively applied. Most of the FAAS methods rely on particle independent sample preparation procedures, where the w/o emulsion, prepared in toluene and in MIBK, was directly aspirated into the flame using different nebulizers, such as pneumatic concentric and single-bore high pressure pneumatic ones [6,34,[40][41][42]. Method calibration generally required the use of metallo-organic standards.…”

“…These procedures may produce higher background signals and require the use of metallo-organic standards for the determination of several elements, including refractory, medium volatility and volatile elements. In this way, the introduction of lubricating oil samples diluted in 4-methyl-2-pentanone [16], xylene [17,18], or kerosene [19,40] has been employed. An automated on-line sample dilution with organic solvent was also proposed, leading to a lower dilution factor and minimized matrix interferences by the use of internal standardization.…”

Wear Metal Analysis of Oils

“…King (17) tested naphtolite in the zinc analysis by FAAS and observed that napholite has better burn properties and less background disturbances than normally found in other solvents. Xylene and kerosene have been used as a typical solvent with ICP-OES (16,21), but kerosene has also been proven to work sufficiently well in the FAAS analysis, when it was compared with ICP-OES (22). Duyck et al (23) used toluene as a solvent in the analysis of crude oils by ICP-MS and ICP-OES.…”

Lubricant quality control: A chemometric approach to assess wear engine in heavy machines

“…Wear analysis has gained commercial interest and several analytical methodologies based on atomic spectrometric techniques have been developed to determine elemental composition of lubricants [1,3,[6][7][8][9][10][11]. Thus, chemical data from lubricant analysis reveals the presence and amount of metallic wear particles in the lubricating.…”

“…Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) is an efficient technique to simultaneously measure almost all metals, including refractory metals, and some nonmetals. It has been considered by several workers to determine trace elements related to the wear in lubricating oils, due to its excellent conditions for elemental excitation and continuous sampling capability, which results in a higher productivity in the analysis of a large amount of samples, making easy the automation of methods for routine multi-element determinations [1,2,8,9]. Pretreatment in complex organic samples for trace elements analysis has always been a challenge in analytical chemistry.…”