IN FOCUS
Don’t wash money down the drain
Shaun Heys Marketing Communications Manager
Frequent wash-downs are a common feature in many aggressive industrial environments. A necessary evil, if you like. Necessary because they remove whatever contamination is present. Evil because they also strip away lubrication from bearings. So how do you make them less of a drain on your finances? One solution is to completely encapsulate the bearings in standard grease. The more there is in the first place, the longer it will take to wash away. Even so, it will need relubricating eventually – and in the meantime large quantities of grease will have been washed away: potentially to contaminate the environment. Alternatively, instead of relubricating you could change your lubricant completely. But not after every wash-down.
Issue 40
Simply change it once, from a lubricant that can’t resist frequent or caustic wash-downs, to one that’s water-, oxidation- and high temperature-resistant. In other words, change it to a PFPE grease like one from the ROCOL range. Perfluoropolyethers – or PFPEs for short – are highly inert. When they’re used as the basis for a grease, the resulting lubricant is resistant to all the things that cause other types of lubricants to fail. When the situation is reversed and it’s the conventional greases that are too aggressive for a delicate
environment, then the inertness of PFPEs means they’re ideal here too. PFPEs also stay in place during washdowns. Which means less relubrication, less lubricant consumption, and less potential environmental contamination. There’s another advantage PFPE greases have over conventional lubricants. Lubricate a bearing with conventional grease and you’ll need to fill around a third of the bearing for effective lubrication. With a PFPE grease, you’ll only need to fill around a