Re: synth vs. Sino Manufacture Techniques

["Sheffield Corey" <SHEF@omdc.gso.uri.edu>]

>> 	IF you watn a Synth vs Dino debate on benefits to the engine then
>> LEave.  REad no further.  THis is a question about environmental Benefits.
>
>Don't know the answer, but back about '75, there was at least one company
>trying to market a motor oil made from soybeans, which was 100% 
>biodegradeable. It was about $10.00 per quart in 1975, so it's clear why
>it caught on...
>
>No disrespect to our Green Friends in Europe, but no one over there as
>mentioned using any biodegradeable oil, so I can only guess that either
>cost killed these oils, or, they did not offer sufficient protection to the
>engine, in which case, the engine would end up polluting worse than if
>it ran dino or synth.


Hi Doug et al,

	I'm a geophysicist, not a chemist; but a few years back I asked an
Amsoil sales type how THEIR product was made as he was running on about the
Mobil 1 of the time having a 25% petroleum based carrier so it wasn't 100%
synthetic. He claimed that they (Amsoil) mixed sulfuric acid with ethyl alcohol
to create their base stock and then buffered it back to a neutral pH and added
their additive package. I can't prove that this is true and maybe it was methyl
alcohol...I prefer to think that my car is lubed with ethyl...like its owner...
on occasion. Notice that I didn't say driver:-) So, if this is true you do not
need a deep hole in Mother Nature to get your base stock from; just some nasty
ol' sulfuric acid(we've got huge piles of sulfur layin' around make acid runoff
in Louisianna), so using that stuff up is good. And some alcohol; we've got lots
of surplus corn; and, every drop of the stuff that goes towards our cars is a
drop that can't be drunk...hopefully, and some would say that that is good too.
And that is why synthetic oil has environmental benefits:-)

HTH,

Shef

P.S. Where's our resident retired chemist; was it Doc Meyers???

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