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Completely non-flammable (zero hydrocarbon) lubricant for pneumatic cylinders?

C

calderp

Aluminum
Joined
Jul 22, 2011
Location
New Orleans
I'm looking for some help on selecting a lubricant for some pneumatic cylinders. They're quite large and we run them very fast and at quite high pressure, 1000psi+. The high speed / high pressure combo makes hydrocarbons a big no-no. Use an oil lubricant and you're creating a powerful little compression engine with potentially disastrous results.
We run them very irregularly, maybe 10 cycles a year or less, so it's as much about storage as it is about lubrication.

Any suggestions?
 
calderp said:
These are pneumatic cylinders run on nitrogen so I would rather use a pneumatic cylinder lube than a hydraulic oil
Click to expand...

Quite a few lubricants billed as "o-ring lube" are silicone based, another one is "super lube" that I believe is a silicone base with PTFE in it as well. Should be just the ticket.

Edit: If you're charging them with nitrogen, do you need to worry too much about auto-ignition? Is there some other oxidiser present in the system?
 
Superlube oils are PAO and contain no silicone, except for the ones they specifically say are silicone, like their silicone o-ring lubricant. No idea about auto-ignition but it was a big topic for spring piston air guns.
 
They make a lubricant for air rifle cylinders that eliminates the detonation issue when the gun is fired. I get mine from RWS. I don't know what it is made of, but if you try to use anything else you get a dangerous detonation which will cause damage to the seals.
 
Hydraulic equipment in steel mills use glycol based fluids to prevent fires from leaks. Maybe one of those products would work as a lube?
 
calderp said:
I'm looking for some help on selecting a lubricant for some pneumatic cylinders. They're quite large and we run them very fast and at quite high pressure, 1000psi+. The high speed / high pressure combo makes hydrocarbons a big no-no. Use an oil lubricant and you're creating a powerful little compression engine with potentially disastrous results.
We run them very irregularly, maybe 10 cycles a year or less, so it's as much about storage as it is about lubrication.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Look for Fluorocarbon greases. As we used in the Liquid Oxygen plants. Extreme temp range, high initial temp and pressure to liquid state.

Fluorinated - CONDAT

【Industrial】Fluorinated Greases｜SUMICO LUBRICANT CO., LTD.

And others:

Krytox - Wikipedia

Already bound to Fluorine, ergo immune to pure Oxygen as to fast reactions (detonation) OR slow ones (age deterioration from Oxidation or bio-cooties).

"Teflon" is only one tiny example of use of Halogens.
 
The company I retired from had their own oxygen plant. I bought a lot of Krytox. great product but very expensive about 200$ a tube
 
As others have mentioned if you have money for krytox that's the stuff to use. We used to use it at a former employer in very high pressure oxygen environments bit I didn't know it came in a non grease format and the stuff cost $75 for a tiny tube.

Interestingly enough there's a whole world of lubricants made out there for the personal pleasure market that are a lot lower cost than Krytox. Some are silicone based, some water based flammability data will likely be hard to come by due to non industrial use but is probably low. I am not sure I would want to be seen searching for any of these in an office environment but I wonder if any of those would fit your needs. Anyone know if glycerin is flammable would it have enough lubrication?

Sent from my SM-J737V using Tapatalk
 
Braycote 601, useful for lubricating things that will come in contact with rocket fuel or oxidizer, think unsymmetric dimethylhydrazine or nitrogen tetroxide. It does make Krytox look cheap however. Also very useful for things that need to be in vacuum.
 
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