Comparison Report
Carbon or Sludge Build Up in Your System?
A fluid's oxidative resilience directly impacts how clean and efficient your system remains while it's in use. Our study clearly shows the difference between each of the selected fluids.
We chose 6 competing products from Exxon Mobil Corporation®, Dow Chemical Company®, Paratherm Corporation®, Petro-Canada Inc® and Multitherm LLC® to stack up against our Duratherm Fluids to show how each product resists oxidation degradation.
The Test
We selected a group of heat transfer fluids that we felt represented the most commonly used fluids in applications under 600F, open to the atmosphere and susceptible to oxidation.
These applications tend to be in smaller, electrically heated equipment used in plastic processing ( extrusion ), molding, die casting etc. However, for any heat transfer system that is not sealed from air contact, the effects of oxidation must be considered.
Fluid Degradation
There are two basic ways that a fluid can degrade.
- Thermal Cracking or overheating beyond the recommended bulk temperature.
- Oxidation, which will be the focus of our study.
Oxidation occurs in a heat transfer fluid usually at temperatures above 200F where the fluid comes in contact with air. This is measured as TAN (Total Acid Number). A TAN of 1.0 is considered the condemning limit for a fluid.
Some fluids have two recommended upper limits, one for open and one for closed systems because they are not engineered to offer the high level of protection needed when used in open to atmosphere conditions. As the operating temperature increases, the effects of oxidation multiply exponentially. This is why some fluids recommend lower maximum operating temperatures for open systems.
We have selected 6 competing fluids to test head-to-head with two of our more popular fluids, Duratherm 600 and Duratherm G. All fluids, including ours, were from production batches and not laboratory samples or custom blends.
The Fluids
- Calflo AF® - lot #044945
- Duratherm G - lot #058448
- Duratherm 600 - lot #058689
- Mobiltherm 603® - lot #M19K9A3
- Multitherm OG1® - lot #03/3318/115999
- Paratherm OR® - lot # CN4060031-L12
- Paratherm NF® - lot #CN4000042-B02
- Ucon 500® - lot # 335073
The Test Method
IP48 is an International Petroleum test standard in which 40ml of fluid is exposed to 400F with 15L/h of air blown through the samples for 24 hours. This accelerates a fluid's aging process.
