The Heart of Production

Join us as we showcase EPT Clean Oil™’s “heart” of production! Our hard-working Operations Team takes the utmost care and pride in producing industry-leading turbine and compressor Lubricant Chemistry Management products, services and results all in one place.

The Life of an Oil Sample

Meet the beating heart behind the science at EPT Clean Oil’s Fluid Technical Center.

Follow our team as they welcome you on the journey of the ‘Life of an Oil Sample,’ an original production by EPT Clean Oil™.

From the first step of filling out an ACE™ Oil Assessment form on our website to ending with a complete understanding of your oil chemistry, our Fluid Technical Center team takes the utmost care with your critical asset, ensuring we are teaching you a better way, managing your lubricant chemistry.

In the first video in this series, “ICB® Ion-Exchange Filter Change Intervals Explained“, we explained how to establish effective turbine lubricant maintenance and testing through regimented oil analysis and ICB® ion-exchange filter change intervals. We will now turn to the importance of full-time Lubricant Chemistry Management.

Lubricant Chemistry Management technology, such as the SVR® Oil Varnish Removal System, places a protective shield over your critical assets. Going beyond particulate removal, SVR, backed by patented ICB® ion-exchange technology, actively eliminates chemical breakdown products, including varnish precursors and oxidation materials. When applied full-time, additive consumption is reduced, offering the ability to significantly extend oil life, maintaining ideal oil chemistry for the life of the oil.

In the absence of full-time Lubricant Chemistry Management, quality will regress, and additive consumption will increase, impacting the life of the lubricant. More importantly, unmanaged, it’s not a matter of if, but when varnish will eventually rear its ugly head.

Target the root cause of oil breakdown and take your maintenance program to the next level with full-time Lubricant Chemistry Management and SVR® Oil Varnish Removal.

Optimize the Performance of Today’s Gas Turbines

Fill, forget, dump, flush, repeat.

This consumable approach to lubricant lifecycle management has a compounding effect on asset predictability and costs. From the first day, a lubricant is put into service it accumulates dissolved oxidation by-products – the feedstock of varnish, constraining the life of the lubricant, contributing to gas turbine lubricant related failures.

Inline duplex filtration addresses particulate removal, but the capacity is limited and does not address lubricant chemistry.

The thermal control valve manages lubricant temperature and pressure, ensuring mechanical components are lubricated and run at peak efficiency. Excess heat degrades the lubricant, resulting in harmful varnish on component surfaces, and deteriorating bearings and seals.

Bearings play a significant role in the machine’s overall reliability and rotor-bearing system vibration. Exposed to hot combustion gases, as well as compressed air, bearings and lubricants are subject to thermal degradation.  

The result:

• improper lubrication which accounts for up to 80 percent of bearing failures
• degraded babbitt condition
• increased friction due to varnish and particulate accumulation leading to adhesive wear
• high rotor vibration which can damage the bearings

Lubricant contamination:

• dramatically shortens bearing life
• contributes to thermal degradation
• results in improper lubrication
• results in harmful varnish on component surfaces
• exponentially increases filtration requirements

Meet SVR® RO, a full-time lubricant chemistry management solution. Backed by patented ICB® RO and high-efficiency particulate removal filters, SVR addresses lubricant breakdown at the molecular level, cleaning the lubricant every time it cycles through the dialysis style loop.

With the SVR installed:

• The lubricant enters the restoration phase
• Deposited contamination dissolves back into the oil via chemical equilibrium
• Temperature control is regulated increasing equipment availability
• Inline duplex filter life is extended
• Lubricant properties are restored, extending available life
• Proper bearing function is restored mitigating vibration and failure
• Asset availability, predictability and reliability is restored

Prevent gas turbine lubricant-related failures with an industry-leading defense shield. Be the hero. Join the installation movement.

Extend Lubricant Life with Proven Lubricant Chemistry Management

Patented ICB® Ion-exchange Filters target fluid chemistry, removing varnish molecules and restoring lubricant solvency. This engineered workhorse, like anything else, exhausts with time. To maintain your application’s optimum operation and restore lubricants outside of OEM specifications, time-based change intervals for ICB filters are essential. Continued use of an exhausted filter is as effective as doing nothing.

It’s time to treat lubricants like assets and extend lubricant life by adopting managed processes, including lubricant chemistry management. Commit to change intervals for ICB filters inline with oil analysis results and stop unscheduled calls to the ‘Lubricant Morgue’ and the unsustainable cycle of fill, forget, dump and flush.

Engineered Fluid Contamination Solutions for critical Steam Turbine Electro-Hydraulic Control Systems (EHC Systems)

The Electro-Hydraulic Control System (EHC System) is one of the most critical systems controlling steam flow, turbine speed and generator output. The proper functioning and reliable operation of the EHC system is critical and the biggest challenge of O&M Managers and Engineers. Responsible for the reliable and rapid closing of all steam valves including emergency situations such as turbine overspeed and power-load imbalance, a malfunction within the EHC system leads to a domino effect resulting in turbine stoppage.

Lubrication plays a vital role in supporting optimal steam turbine performance. Operating under extreme conditions and high temperature operations, turbine control and protection systems demand specialized synthetic EHC fluids known as fire-resistant fluid (FRF). These fluids offer excellent lubricating properties, however they require strict control as they have a tendency to adsorb water, form acids and produce varnish. FRF fluid degradation results in sticking valves, eroded servo valves, plugged filters and/or blocked servo valve strainers – turbine operation failure mechanisms.

To achieve optimal performance characteristics, fluid chemistry and solid contamination need to be in a managed state. Proactively manage fluid quality to ASTM D8323 standards with EPT Clean Oil’s engineered contamination removal solutions.

Duplex High Pressure Filter System

Proactively manage physical contamination in the duplex high pressure filter system with stainless fiber elements. Upgrading traditional glass media to stainless fiber media eliminates the risk of fiber shedding, protecting servo valve strainers.

Low Pressure Acid Filter System

The low pressure system can be retrofitted with patented ion exchange ICB® filters, engineered to address the fluid chemistry, removing fluid breakdown products, acids, phenols and varnish in the fluid. 

EHC System Sub-Micron Contamination Removal

ECR® is the missing link in proactive fluid maintenance. Using electrostatic fields and proprietary collector elements, the ECR focuses on sub-micron particulate contamination left unaddressed by mechanical filters.

Eliminate EHC System Atmospheric Water Ingression

Ester based lubricants attract atmospheric water, resulting in breakdown and acid formation. TMR® N2 provides the security blanket your reservoir needs, insulating the headspace above the lubricant surface with high purity nitrogen. This eliminates atmospheric water ingression, managing fluid chemistry and factors that accelerate oxidation.

The results speak for themselves:

1. Increased duplex filter efficiency and lifespan
2. Decreased acid number and increased resistivity
3. Steadily decreasing MPC values and improved patch color
4. Improved fluid color
5. Improved servo valve spool response time
6. Constant megawatt production output

Avoid costly and catastrophic consequences. Invest in proactive fluid management with EPT Clean Oil’s engineered contamination removal solutions. Our team of experienced professionals and industry experts are here to support O&M Managers and Engineers optimize preventative maintenance programs and maintain turbine uptime moving forward.

Not to generalize, but I think it is safe to say most of us can relate – partnerships take work. It is a daily and conscious commitment demanding of your time and attention.

In the beginning this seems to come so naturally – the honeymoon phase. There is excitement, energy, collaboration and a happiness that feels ever-lasting.

Then it happens. The honeymoon phase ends and daily realities kick in. Excitement turns to compromise, energy to exhaustion and that feeling of happiness starts to look rather bleak.

The partnership hits a fork in the road. Turn left and break-up, or turn right and make-up. The choice is never easy, so which one do you choose?

This natural human experience is not spared on the inanimate. Let’s look at this from the lens of your turbine lubricant. Designed and manufactured to partner with your turbine, it’s purpose is to drive seamless mechanical operation day in and day out. Naturally, the honeymoon phase begins, both with a strong commitment to one another. And then, like in our own lives, time happens.

From the moment a lubricant is put into service, it begins to chemically breakdown – the result of oxidation. In the absence of dedicated support and in the presence of the daily demands from its partner, the turbine, oxidation material begins to build up.

If life has taught us nothing else, we know that bottled up demands that build up over time eventually find their way to the surface in an episodic moment of fury. The recovery from this moment is the choice. Left and break-up or right and make-up.  

A lubricant experiences much the same. Unable to hold the growing contamination any longer, the lubricant unleashes its fury, depositing varnish on the turbine’s mechanical surfaces. Here in lies the choice. Break-up, condemning the lubricant, or make-up, restoring the lubricant condition to the quality specification first introduced to the turbine?

Turn right and make-up. It’s not over. With the help of a dedicated ‘couples therapist’ lubricant condition can be restored.

Meet ICB®, a patented ion-exchange ‘therapist’ engineered to target the cause of their failing partnership; to remediate the contaminants and restore the qualities that makes this partnership work.

Mark the calendars for the 10 year anniversary celebration. These two are back in-sync, seamlessly rotating and operating once more.

Stop lubricant varnish in its tracks.

From the moment lubricants are put into service, they chemically breakdown. The primary pathway: oxidation.

The result: oxidation waste products dissolve in the oil. This dissolved oxidation material all too often goes unmanaged by routine maintenance.
 
Modern turbine and compressor oils are non-polar and oxidation material is polar, resulting in a tendency for this oxidation material to be more attracted to metal surfaces than the oil itself. The result: deposits on mechanical surfaces including bearings.
 
For too long this has been the status quo. It’s time to manage, unmanaged dissolved oxidation material in your lubricant. Meet SVR® – a chemistry solution for a chemistry problem.™ Backed by patented ion exchange technology, ICB®, SVR works 100% of the time, removing acids and dissolved oxidation material as it is generated.
 
Only by managing oxidation levels and removing oxidation material as it is generated can the root cause of lubricant deposits, or varnish, be eliminated.

SVR® Lubricant Conditioning System

SVR® is an engineered lubricant conditioning system that works 100% of the time, targeting the underlying cause of lubricant failure: chemical breakdown.

Utilizing patented ion-exchange resin technology, ICB®, SVR removes chemical breakdown products and varnish at the molecular level, maintaining optimal lubricant quality. Through full-time, continuous treatment, SVR stops the contamination cycle in its tracks, cleaning the lubricant every time it cycles through the kidney loop circuit. By removing and preventing chemical breakdown material accumulation, lubricant life is extended, mitigating mechanical failures and costly production losses.

As the gold standard in turbine lube oil and phosphate ester fluid maintenance, SVR is designed to facilitate rapid deployment, without downtime. Just install and reap the following rewards:

• Mitigate the risk of servo valve sticking
• Remove bearing deposits
• Restore normal MPC varnish potential and Acid Number (TAN/AN)
• Restore demulsibility values
• Protect against solid and dissolved varnish
• Results qualified by ACE™ oil analysis
• Significantly reduce solid contamination
• Significantly improve fluid resistivity

Transform the way industrial lubricants are used and maintained with the SVR lubricant conditioning system.

If your turbine could talk, what would it say?

What if the internal monologue of your turbine sounded like this?

From the first day we are put into service our mission is to continue rotating – period. We are not whole unless we are operating. Our lifeblood – in spec quality lubricant free flowing without varnish.

Over time we age – the lubricant pumping through us, our mechanical components, everything. Our oils’ reserves exhausted. Our daily rotations exhaust us. Life for a turbine not rotating is unnerving. We are out of service. Off the grid.

We need a partner. A partner that understands the importance of lifeblood – of lubricant quality. The importance of seamless performance. The importance of our continuous operation.

~Turbines Everywhere

Your turbine has a story. Take the time to listen.

Through the act of humanizing a turbine, the voiceless can be heard and seen differently. Turbines, like humans, have demands. They demand routine health checks, annual exams, maintenance and monitoring – they demand a partner. In the absence, it is not a matter of if, but when your turbine will be unavailable when it is demanded. And the price you pay is high in the event this occurs.

This is why in 2005, EPT Clean Oil introduced the first generation SVR® Lubricant Conditioning System. We listened, engineering a kidney loop system that works 100% of the time, to target the underlying cause of turbine lubricant failure: chemical breakdown.

Utilizing patented ion-exchange resin technology, ICB®, SVR removes chemical breakdown products and varnish at the molecular level, maintaining optimal lubricant quality. Through full-time, continuous treatment, SVR stops the contamination cycle in its tracks, cleaning the lubricant every time it cycles through the kidney loop circuit. By removing and preventing chemical breakdown material accumulation, lubricant life is extended, mitigating mechanical failures and costly production losses.

The result – your turbine is online, in action, continuously operating.