A Generalized Correlation for Characterization of Lubricating Base-oils from Their Viscosities

Abstract

Lubricating mineral base oils are normally extracted from lube-oil cuts with furfural solvent. Aromatic content in the raffinate phase from extraction process is an essential parameter that affects the quality of the lubricating base-oils. For determination of aromatic content by the usual ASTM D3238 method, density, refractive index and molecular weight of the raffinate are required. In this work, a new generalized correlation is developed for determination the aromatic content by using only the measured viscosity of lubricating oil. With a mole fraction of aromatic compounds, the kinematic viscosity may be obtained at any temperature between 60-100 (C along with their molecular weight and refractive index. © 2010 Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China (CIESC) and Chemical Industry Press (CIP)