A New Technology for Oil Management: Electrostatic Oil Cleaner

Anybody knows that contamination in oil is always harmful to hydraulic and lubricating systems. Contaminants inevitably exist in the oils of hydraulic and lubrication systems and cause tribological problems. In order to prevent such tribological problems due to contaminants, various oil cleaners have been developed and applied to hydraulic and lubricating systems. They have greatly contributed to improving the reliability of the systems. Since sophisticated hydraulic systems with proportional valves or servo valves, which are sensitive to oil contamination, became popular, fine filters like 3 micron or 1 micron are additionally used. However contamination problems have been revived. The authors have investigated the causes of hydraulic and lubricating problems and found that polymerized oil oxidation products were as harmful as solid particles. They are of molecular size and cannot be removed by mechanical filtration. The authors have developed electrostatic oil cleaners, which can remove not only micron size particulate contaminants but also polymerized oil oxidation products.

This paper discusses the principle of electrostatic oil cleaning technology and demonstrates performance of it.