Polyalpha-olefins

The most common liquid lubricants are mineral oils (usually naphthenic), esters (either diesters or complex esters), polyalpha olefins and polyalkylene glycols. 

The lions share, 80-90%, of the alpha olefins produced in. the United States are used In five areas as comonomers in LLDPE (linear low density polyethylene) and HDPE (high density polyethylene), plasticizer alcohols, polyalpha olefins for use in synthetic lubricants, detergent alcohols, and surfactants. The comonomer demand started out exclusively as butene-1, but it is shifting toward hexene-1 and octene-1. Similarly, the specification... 

Polyolefins—specifically, polyalpha olefins—are made from polymerizing alpha olefins where the double bond is located at the alpha carbon atom. Figure 7.7 shows 1-hexene. The double bond is located between the first and second carbon atoms and, as a result, they have flexible alkyl branching groups on every opposite carbon in the chain. The flexibility due to the different configurations makes crystallization difficult. Because polyalpha olefins are able to remain flexible at lower temperatures, they are ideal as a synthetic motor oil. Some advantages versus disadvantages of synthetics are shown in Table 7.4... 

The refinery has a processing capacicy of 3.1 Mc y" and includes copping, vacuum distillation, an inorganic lube oil plant (185,000 C y" ) and a recent synthetic PAO (polyalpha olefins) lube oil plant (15,000 t-y ). 

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