Cleantech Investor

First published in Cleantech magazine Issue 4 2011. Copyright Cleantech Investor Ltd.

by Anne McIvor

Electric vehicles (EVs) may be attracting headlines, but it’s way too soon to write the obituary of the internal combustion engine (ICE). Dr Martin Dare-Edwards, Country Manager at Infineum UK Ltd, believes that the “ICE is going on a long way...”, and expects to see at least 30 years of growth in the ICE vehicle area before EVs represent a sizeable proportion of the vehicle parc. The Infineum group, a leader in the formulation and manufacturing of petroleum additives for lubricants and fuels, has been developing products to enhance the performance of vehicles for over 80 years - and expects to continue to make advances in the fuel efficiency of vehicles for many years to come.

CLEANTECH LUBRICANT ADDITIVES

Infineum supplies complex chemical additives for technologies that use fossil fuels – sort of cleantech lubricant additives! Infineum products are to be found in the crankcase lubricants used in petroleum and diesel engines for passenger car & heavy duty automotives, marine and power generation (including natural gas-fired power stations) and for speciality applications such as transmission fluids, industrial oils and small engines.

Infineum sits in an integral part of the oil and automotive industry supply chain. But it’s a quiet giant. You won’t see products tagged ‘Infineum Inside’ – but you can be sure that the group’s additives can be found in lubricants sold around the world. Infineum happens to be owned jointly by Shell and ExxonMobil (it was founded as a joint venture between the two in 1999), but supplies to most oil majors and it works in partnership with automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).  

Infineum has research and development centres in Europe, Japan, Singapore and the US. I met Dare-Edwards at the European headquarters, which is located in a quiet corner of rural Oxfordshire. A team of around 500 highly qualifi ed individuals work at the Oxford location – 400 of Infineum’s own staff and around 100 contractors – a significant number of Infineum’s staff have a PhD level qualification.

BUILDING ON THE HERITAGE OF WATT AND REYNOLDS

The research being undertaken by this impressive concentration of brainpower follows in the wake of a long list of eminent scientists. The choice of names for the research buildings perhaps says it all. The James Watt building is named after the Scottish inventor and engineer who – amongst various other claims to fame, including the introduction of a unit called the horsepower – inaugurated the use of oil lubrication of engines. And the Reynolds facility is named after the Northern Irish scientist, mathematician and engineer, described as the ‘father of tribology’ - the science and technology of friction, lubrication and wear.

Tribology is, of course, a key discipline for Infineum – as is rheology, the science of fluid flow, which was also pioneered by Reynolds. Reynolds was the developer of the Reynolds number, used in aerodynamics and hydraulics, to measure the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces – and which determines the smoothness of fluid flow.

Infineum UK is an important recruiter from around Europe and the Oxford facility, with 29 nationalities, has a distinctly international flavour. Organic chemistry is a key research discipline at the nearby University of Oxford. However, that institution tends to focus on biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, which makes it a less likely source of graduates to work at Infineum than might be expected. (Biotechnology focuses on groupings of chemicals which are soluble in water, while Infineum’s focus is on chemicals which are soluble in hydrocarbons.)

Infineum UK has a strong association with the University of Bristol and with Imperial College London, regarded as a UK leader in the science of tribology. Infineum is also developing closer links to Oxford Brookes University, which has expertise in mechanical engineering, offers a degree course in motor engineering and has capacity for early stage evaluation of novel technologies.

FUEL ECONOMY FOCUS

The Infineum team in Oxfordshire is at the cutting edge of some of the major developments in fuel economy in Europe – and indeed the world. The US (where Infineum has a research centre at Linden, New Jersey) is catching up, and China is making headway, but the key developments in the fuel efficiency field are still coming from Europe and Japan. Advances in fuel economy are being driven by increasingly tough legislation. New EU regulations will be introduced in 2012 which will mean that, for any given vehicle manufacturer, the average fuel economy of the entire range of vehicles it produces has to be 130g CO2/km or less.

If the average rises above this level, the manufacturer will be fined. This legislation will be enforced alongside the existing EURO 5/EURO 6 standards – which focus on emissions of NOx, SOx and particulate matter (PM) as well as fuel efficiency.

The deadline for implementation of these regulations is driving OEMs to focus increasingly on smaller cars – and of course electric vehicles – to mitigate the impact of the average calculation on their ranges. In parallel, many are also working closely with Infineum to meet energy efficiency targets.
Dare-Edwards emphasises that there is a lot to be done to improve the efficiency of existing vehicles. A lubricant alone can save between 1% and 5% in terms of fuel economy. That might not seem like much, but that sort of saving is, in itself, worth having: savings of even 1% to 2% pay themselves back many times over versus the cost of the lubricant. For a fleet operator a small improvement in efficiency of 1-2% can make a big difference.
Dare-Edwards points out that savings in fuel economy of between 20% and 25% are possible when Infineum works in conjunction with engine and transmission manufacturers and contributes to the development of new technologies which are intrinsically more energy efficient. Infineum has close collaborative research and development programmes with component suppliers and consultancies to OEMs.

Areas of research range across all sizes and types of vehicles. Transmission oils are a further key area of focus. Historically, vehicles with automatic transmissions had poorer fuel economy but, thanks to advances in the technology of automated transmission systems, these can now achieve very high fuel economy performance’. The key for the modern transmission technologies, according to Dare-Edwards, is to work towards ‘controlled friction’, rather than lower friction. Infi neum works closely with vehicle and transmission manufacturers in this area.

Elsewhere, in HGVs, extensive use of exhaust gas recirculation systems (which pump soot particles back into engines) has created a market for a lubricant with the capacity to manage the dispersion of the additional soot.

Infineum has a separate marine division since lubricants for the marine industry are significantly diff erent: some marine engines, like two-stroke engines, don’t have a sump. Infi neum’s technology is widely used in the outboard motors market – particularly in water cooled small engines in the US. It also has an important presence in large marine vessels – especially in trunk piston engines – working in close partnership with engine manufacturers.

HYBRIDS AND BIOFUELS: NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

The ICE vehicle parc will in the future include a growing portion of hybrids and autos optimised to run on biofuels – all of which are offering new business opportunities for Infineum. Hybrids have very different duty cycles from traditional ICE vehicles. Totally novel lubricants are being developed explicitly for hybrids, to accommodate their high stop-start cycles (starting and stopping are some of the most damaging times for a vehicle). 

Biofuels, meanwhile, off er a major challenge for lubricants manufacturers. According to Dare-Edwards, the market for lubricants for biofuel vehicles could potentially become bigger than the market for traditional fossil fuels in the future.

Challenges which have yet to be overcome for biofuel vehicles include the fuel handling system and engine technology. Storage is an issue. While frothing over in tanks is extreme, a common issue is activity which produces deposits in a biodiesel vehicle.  

Biodiesel is less volatile than fossil fuel, doesn’t evaporate and oxidises easily, causing deposits. There are also fears of fuel contamination. Fuel additives will increasingly play a major role in avoiding deposits which block fuel filters, deposits in jets and the fine parts of fuel injection systems.
Ethanol poses its own challenges. The risk of corrosion is an issue as it has a high percentage of acids which need to be neutralised. Infineum has a strong presence in Brazil, a leading bioethanol market. The group has a manufacturing plant in Rio de Janeiro and works closely with major players in the ethanol market, to devise lubricants adapted for vehicles running on fuels with a high ethanol content.

EXTENSIVE IP AND R&D

To sustain the group’s Technological excellence, Infineum has a sizeable research and development (R&D) budget, including for engine testing. Indeed a single engine test on one particular aspect of a given oil can cost anything from €10,000 to €100,000. Tests are of course needed to prove the potential of a new product – but also to disprove any potential side eff ects. In order to keep costs down, Infi neum has developed complex prediction models which are used extensively. Engine tests take place only when the predicted performance is understood - saving money and fuel, but also reducing environmental impact. 

With all of this research, intellectual property (IP) management is paramount to success and Infineum, like other key players in the space, manages its IP carefully. Infineum is a technology enterprise fi rst and foremost. This isn’t a space for ‘snake oil’ sellers. If it hasn’t been tried and tested, don’t trust it!