DISCLAIMER: The opinions and observations herein result from over 33 years of experience in grease R&D, grease manufacturing, and grease plant engineering. They do not imply any guarantee regarding quantifiable cost benefits as variables such as local energy costs, labor costs, and facility overhead are unknown. STRATCO will be able to work with you on a case-by-case basis to develop specific cost/benefit analysis and hard credits supporting the use of the STRATCO® GPS.
Executive Summary
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the exciting new STRATCO® Grease Production System™. This unit is a fully integrated and skid-mounted self-contained commercial quality grease manufacturing unit scaled to 1MT. It is configurable to accommodate nearly any grease thickener from simple lithium to calcium sulfonate to polyurea, and everything in between. The user provides installation space, utilities, raw materials, recipes, and manpower while STRATCO provides their engineering expertise in grease manufacturing equipment and process development embodied by the GPS. The decision to own and operate a GPS allows users to start making grease quickly with minimal cost. Of course, if needed, STRATCO can help with formulation and process development.
The GPS is an invaluable tool in every grease maker’s toolbox, whether producing small batches of high-value specialty grease or making samples of a new product for customer approval, the GPS provides commercial production quality grease without the hassle of using full-scale commercial equipment to produce small samples. The unit is beneficial to large and small grease producers alike, grease additive companies, research and development facilities as well as many others who need to produce small volumes of high-quality commercial grade grease.
STRATCO® GPS™ Introduction
The GPS, as shown in Figures 1 and 2, is unique in the grease industry. It is a fully integrated,
ready to operate skid-mounted commercial grease production unit scaled to 1MT production quantity. Care and consideration have been taken in scaling to ensure equivalence with large scale production equipment regarding flow characteristics, thermal characteristics, and pressure characteristics – all resulting in a 1MT integrated unit that produces commercial quality grease. This is in stark contrast to
typical pilot plant production where smaller components are employed with the full knowledge that there will be process differences between the pilot and commercial production, which may need to be resolved when transitioning to large-scale sized equipment. Although STRATCO pilot reactors have a very high correlation to large scale production, the GPS eliminates all scalability adjustments.
The unit combines the STRATCO® Contactor™ reactor with a STRATCO designed finishing kettle and includes integrated milling, filtration, and controls. The unit can be configured to accommodate a Contactor™ reactor/finishing kettle, cooking kettle/finishing kettle, or one kettle grease manufacturing processes based on the end user requirements and thickener system(s) to be produced.
Available configurations support the production of the following thickener systems:
- Lithium
- Lithium Complex (both acid complex and structure modified complex)
- Calcium Sulfonate
- Calcium (Anhydrous, hydrated or Complex)
- Polyurea
- Aluminum (Simple and Complex)
- Sodium
- Mixed Lithium/Calcium
- Other Specialty Thickeners
STRATCO can collaborate with clients on specific configurations and optional equipment on an as-requested basis.
STRATCO® Grease Production System™ (GPS) Case for Action
Today’s ever-evolving grease industry presents a unique opportunity for the GPS within the grease maker’s toolkit. Grease users are demanding ever more complex, customized products for high technology and niche applications, which can present a challenge to grease producers to supply cost effectively.
Such products are typically of low annual volume but provide producers with high value; if they can be produced and supplied meeting the customer’s stringent requirements. In addition to the relatively small volume demand, these products present challenges to producers operating large-scale equipment vis-à-vis slops generation, compatibility concerns, and inventory carrying costs. On top of these already considerable hurdles, users often require a product that is produced for evaluation to be of commercial quality, meaning users expect the product to be produced via processes that will not change over time. Changing a process after a customer has approved a product can result in the need for re-evaluation and reapproval. While pilot plant production may overcome the low-volume quandary, it is accepted that pilot plant processes may differ from those processes used for large-scale commercial production.
An added benefit of the GPS is the STRATCO engineering that goes into every unit produced. STRATCO’s engineers take great care to size the components of the GPS such that it operates in the same temperature, pressure, and flow regimes as larger commercial grease manufacturing equipment. As any grease producer knows, grease is unique in its physical properties and simply downsizing equipment can yield drastically different results. By putting your faith in STRATCO engineering, the GPS delivers commercial quality production on a small scale.
Benefits of the STRATCO® Grease Production System™
Regardless of your position in the grease industry, the GPS can provide myriad benefits, both soft and hard. Let’s see how the GPS, combining STRATCO’s engineering expertise and deep knowledge of grease production equipment and processes, can provide benefits to your operation. Regardless of your position on the supply side of the grease industry, cost-effective production of low-volume/high-value products or new, novel high technology products, can present sometimes unsurmountable challenges. Here is how the GPS can help along the entire grease supply chain from Large Grease Producers, Small/Specialty Grease Producers, Grease Research & Development organizations and Grease Additive Suppliers as a special case of grease R&D.
Large Grease Producer
Large grease producers can benefit from the GPS by having the ability to produce low(er) volume specialty products cost effectively, without the concerns of slop generation and compatibility, and without having to engineer and size appropriate equipment. Large producers typically have an OPEX hurdle to overcome when deciding to add a product to their production slate. Large-scale commercial grease equipment requires significant energy to operate simply due to the size of the equipment. Additionally, large-scale production facilities are burdened with both variable and non-variable facility overhead, it costs a lot of money just to turn the lights on at a large grease production facility. Large producers make grease in large batches with equipment scaled and sized to provide consistent production over the long term – as long as the equipment is operated at full volume. Lastly, there is the question of compatibility amongst products that may share the same equipment. Incompatible products will require extensive equipment cleaning between production runs, which can result in hundreds if not thousands of gallons of slop to be addressed. At least in the USA, grease slops are considered as hazardous waste and are costly to dispose of properly
The STRATCO® GPS™ provides a solution to every one of these concerns that might prevent a large producer from participating in a specific grease market. The 1MT size (~5.5×180 kg drums or 55x18kg pails) is large enough for specialty production without the burdens of operating large-scale commercial equipment. The GPS can be operated locally via PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) or remotely when connected to a facility’s DCS (Distributed Control System) requiring no more than a single operator to charge components and monitor progress. The GPS, being 10-20 times smaller than large grease manufacturing equipment requires up to 20 times less energy (electricity, heating, cooling, pumps, etc.) providing additional cost savings. Finally, the compact nature of the GPS allows for maximum cross-contamination prevention and generates significantly less slop to clean, if required, between batches. As a point of reference, cleaning a 10MT grease kettle can generate up to 2,000 gallons (~7,500 liters) of mixed oil/grease slop which needs to be disposed of as hazardous waste, unless there is an option to store and reuse the wash oil in subsequent batches which impact inventory carrying cost.
Small/Specialty Grease Producer
Small/Specialty grease producers will benefit from the same cost benefits associated with a large grease producer operating an GPS with the added benefits of speed to add production to a facility and integrated PLC controls allowing the GPS to operate independently of other installed equipment. As a fully engineered self-contained skid, the GPS can quickly be installed, connect to utilities, and begin operation in a short period of time. The GPS, with service clearance, needs <40 m2 of floor space to install, slightly larger if optional utilities such as heating, cooling, compressed air, etc. are added.
Unlike large producers, small/specialty producers may not have the working capital at hand to manage the production of low-volume/high-value products. When a single production batch may result in a full year or more of customer demand, that is a lot of capital tied up in inventory and not making a profit for the producer. The GPS allows the production of up to 55.5 x 180kg drums of product at a time, drastically minimizing any carry costs and ensuring continued cash flow for the producer.
Trusting STRATCO’s engineering expertise to provide the best engineered solution for small-scale commercial grease production enables small/specialty grease producers to rapidly retool their facilities to new product lines and gain speed-to-market advantage for new opportunities. Every business major will agree, first mover advantage is hard to overcome; the GPS gives this first mover advantage to the small/specialty grease producer.
Research & Development
Production cost benefits may be less front-of-mind for a grease research and development facility, but producing the highest quality experimental greases for customer and market evaluation is. Many R&D facilities operate pilot plants which may, or may not, be fully integrated and representative of actual large-scale production. This is a challenge from two perspectives, the customer evaluation perspective and the commercial production perspective.
Today’s Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Equipment Builders (EBs) many times stipulate that only commercially produced experimental product samples will be evaluated and considered. These OEMs and EBs are savvy enough to know that small-scale R&D production may not smoothly translate to large-scale production due to differences in thermal, pressure, and flow characteristics between small and large-scale, even when compositional equivalence is maintained. These potential customers desire to evaluate a product that will perform the same in the future and be produced by the same processes in the future as the experimental sample they invested in evaluating for approval. The GPS handily addresses this constraint. STRATCO engineers have combined their vast knowledge of grease manufacturing with expertise in grease manufacturing equipment and scaled it into an integrated 1MT unit that operates in the same temperature, pressure, and flow regimes as large-scale commercial equipment. This enables the production of small batches of experimental products under the same processing conditions that will be realized when commercial production begins.
A secondary benefit of the GPS for grease R&D is the fact that the GPS operates in the same temperature, pressure, and flow regimes as large-scale production equipment. This enables the R&D folks to develop processing parameters for Commercial production, dramatically reducing the speed-to-market of a new product. Trial and error scale-up from lab-scale experimental production to marketable production can be timely and costly. R&D, utilizing the GPS, can develop both the compositional requirements and processing parameters needed by production when adding a new product to the production plan. This has a knock-on effect of helping to reduce potential slop generation as the plant attempts to scale up from R&D lab quantities.
Grease Additive Companies
Additive producers (AdCo’s) serving the grease industry can also benefit from the GPS. Often, as proof of efficacy for a new additive, an AdCo will request ‘base grease’ from a potential customer. This base grease is usually pulled from an in situ commercial batch before additization and finishing. As such, the viscometrics and penetration range of the sample may be off, and the thickener content will usually be high. This grease, after it has cooled and fully set the thickener matrix, will be charged to either a small lab-scale finishing kettle or simple laboratory glassware where it will be finished incorporating the new additive. For many additives, this process serves to adequately provide proof-of-performance of the new additive in the customer’s base grease. But there can be unexpected side effects of post-processing the thickener such as increased oil release/bleed or structural instability which is no fault of the new additive rather it’s caused by post-processing the thickener system after grease matrix setting.
The GPS would allow the AdCo, assuming base formulation and processing can be provided by the customer (presumably under a Non-Disclosure Agreement), to provide a more real-world example of the benefit of the new additive in the customer’s specific formulation. Doing so can help reduce R&D efforts of the customer by potentially having the customer’s R&D department accept the results without having to produce in-house finished grease as validation. This helps both the AdCo and the customer. The GPS, as a scaled integrated unit that is capable of duplicating large-scale process profiles, could enable faster acceptance of a new additive, thereby reducing time-to-market.
Additionally, today the drive to provide ‘value added service’ is inherent in all aspects of the industry. By operating a GPS an AdCo could, if they chose, provide not only additive efficacy data but also processing data as well. For some grease producers, this would be a huge benefit and eliminate some work at their R&D facility.
STRATCO® Grease Production System™ Benefits Summary
As we have seen, the GPS does indeed provide benefits along the entire manufacturing supply side of the grease industry. From large producers to small/specialty producers to Research & Development, the GPS will provide flexibility and savings not possible with large-scale commercial equipment operated at low volumes. Putting your confidence in STRATCO’s engineering expertise and knowledge through the GPS gives producers a leg up in the extremely competitive and lucrative grease industry.
Description of the STRATCO® GPS™
The standard 1MT GPS comes mounted on two skids that, when assembled, measures 6.17m x 2.1m and stands 4m tall once the Contactor™ reactor is mounted. As such, as little as 13 m2 floor space is required to install the GPS; allowing for service space around the skid, the space required would be approximately 40 m2, more if optional equipment such as heating and cooling systems are included. Position the skid on a production floor, provide utilities, raw materials, process, formulation, and manpower, and be making commercial quality grease in no time.
Included in the standard 1MT GPS are:
- 140 USG STRATCO® Contactor™ reactor
- 300 USG finishing kettle
- Vent knockout vessels
- All piping, insulated as necessary
- Base oil Coriolis meter and flow control valve
- Heating and pressure control sensors, transmitters and control valves
- All on-skid transfer pumps, including recirculation and filling pumps
- All connections for utilities including electricity, ventilation, and heating/cooling
- An integrated colloid mill
- Grease filtration housings
- PLC for process control and management
The GPS can be configured to meet your every need.
- Carbon Steel (CS) or Stainless Steel (SS) units
- Standard GPS includes a CS Contactor™ reactor and SS Finishing Kettle
- Can be scaled to 2MT upon request
- Seals & Gaskets are configurable to local requirements
- Colloid mill is included standard but can be replaced with an APV Gaulin-type homogenizer
- An In-Line Silverson-type disperser can be added for additional milling
- Fully installed PLC suitable for DCS integration
- Vent knock-out pots are included but can be excluded for local tie-in
- Standard Positive Displacement (PD) pumps with pressure control can be upgraded to VFD-driven PD pumps if requested
- Additional nozzles can be added to the contactor™ and kettle as specified
- The GPS can be configured as a cooking kettle feeding finishing kettle if specific formulations to be produced do not require the benefits of a Contactor™ reactor for thickener formation
- The GPS can be configured with more than one finishing kettle skid, if required
As alluded to above, the GPS can be configured as a Contactor™ reactor feeding finishing kettle, a cooking kettle feeding finishing kettle, or a single kettle equipped for cooking and finishing. The actual configuration is thickener-dependent. Common configurations are shown in Table 1 below
Table 1: Common STRATCO® Grease Production System™ Configurations
| Thickener Type | P&P Configuration |
| Li / LiX | Contactor™ reactor/ Kettle / Charlotte Mill |
| Contactor™ reactor/ Kettle / APV Gaulin-type Mill | |
| Ca / CaX | Cooking kettle / finishing kettle Charlotte Mill |
| CaSulf | Cooking kettle / finishing kettle / Charlotte Mill |
| Cooking kettle / finishing kettle / APV Gaulin-type Mill | |
| Contactor™ reactor/ finishing kettle / Charlotte Mill | |
| Contactor™ reactor/ finishing kettle / APV Gaulin-type Mill | |
| Al / AlX | Cooking kettle / finishing kettle / Charlotte Mill |
| Cooking kettle / finishing kettle / APV Gaulin-type Mill | |
| Contactor™ reactor/ finishing kettle / Charlotte Mill | |
| Contactor™ reactor / finishing kettle / APV Gaulin-type Mill | |
| Bentone | Integrated cooking / APV Gaulin-type Mill |
User Responsibilities
While the GPS is a fully integrated small-scale commercial production facility ready to go upon installation, the user does have some responsibilities beyond providing space for the unit to be delivered and placing the order with STRATCO. STRATCO can configure the GPS to address some of the user responsibilities upon request.
The user must provide:
- All utilities including electrical, heating, and cooling
- STRATCO can integrate heating and cooling system upon request
- Tie-ins to facility exhaust/ventilation system.
- The GPS comes with knock-out pots for Contactor™ reactor and a kettle fitted with an external flange for easy connection to facility systems
- Elevated platforms to allow access to Contactor™ reactor and kettle for component charging
- STRATCO can provide platforms to user requirements upon request
- Raw material (base oils, bulk additives, etc.) pumps and lines
- The GPS has blind-flanged nozzles for connection to user systems
On top of the start-of-the-art fully integrated skid-mounted commercial production unit, STRATCO can perform on-site installation, commissioning and start-up of the GPS at the user site, either using user-preferred mechanical contractors or STRATCO selected mechanical contractors. STRATCO also offers process development which can be done at their pilot plant facility with their experts to minimize process development timeline and maximize use of the GPS for commercial production.
Summary
The STRATCO® GPS™ is an exciting addition to the grease manufacturing landscape. By combining equipment expertise and deep process knowledge, STRATCO has developed a fully integrated, scaled commercial grease production unit that is as close to a plug-and-play as one can get. Configurable to meet any need, the GPS is a cost-effective, quick way to add low volume/high value to any grease producer’s portfolio without breaking the bank. Hopefully, the insights contained herein have sparked interest in the STRATCO® GPS™.
Contact STRATCO to discuss how a STRATCO® GPS™ can be configured.