Industrial storage tanks and guardrails under a blue sky
The microfoam hidden in a circulating hydraulic oil system is the most grinding kind. The surface looks calm, but the pump shudders as it draws, the air in the oil cannot escape, line air lock and pump noise follow along with it, and oxidation of the oil is accelerated.
Chemi Tech makes defoamers for oil-based systems such as hydraulic oils and lubricating oils, drawn from the defoamer KM-860 series. How a grade is matched depends on the kind of base oil, the additives in the system, and the operating temperature. KM-866 is a silicone oil system with good compatibility: it breaks foam quickly once added, and it does not pull the performance of the oil itself off course.
Advantages of Chemi Tech Defoamers
Chemi Tech defoamer KM-866 series is compatible, blending into mineral oil systems without precipitating or clouding. Its foam breaking is solid as well: once the microfoam is knocked down the air content of the oil falls and the pump draws smoothly. It does not interfere with oil performance either, so viscosity and oxidation stability do not shift because the chemical is present. And the dosage is low — it runs at a small proportion of the oil volume, so the overall cost stays limited.
A note from Chemi Tech: the behaviour above comes from a typical mineral oil system condition. A sample can be taken for a small trial against your actual situation.
Industry Pain Points and Solutions
What makes microfoam in oil difficult is that it makes no sound, and it is only noticed once the problem has already surfaced.
The first thing to appear is pump cavitation. With air in the oil the pump shudders as it draws, noise rises, and service life falls with it. Chemi Tech places the dosing point at the return port of the storage tank, so the chemical disperses evenly while the oil circulates.
What follows is accelerated oxidation. With air sealed inside the oil, the area in contact with oxygen grows, the colour darkens and the acid value rises. Chemi Tech's approach is to look at defoaming and anti-oxidation together: bring the air content down first, then talk about oil life.
One more point is additive conflict. An oil-based system carries many kinds of additive, and if the defoamer is the wrong choice it fights the dispersant and the detergent, and the oil separates. Chemi Tech's approach is to run compatibility validation against the complete formulation and only scale the addition level up after both items pass.
Typical Conditions and Verification
Customer: a lubricant blending enterprise in Guangdong, applying it to the blending and filling stages of lubricating oil bases.
The lubricating oil base products from this plant carried a high air content after blending, the pump drew poorly at filling, and the oil darkened after standing for a period, which drew quality feedback from customers. The solution offered by Chemi Tech defoamer was: against the base oil and the additive list, a suitable grade was selected from the KM-860 series, the dosing point was set at the return port of the blending tank, and the addition level was calibrated against batch volume. After the change filling ran smoothly, the air content of the oil came down, and storage stability held.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will the defoamer added to lubricating oil affect the viscosity of the oil?
There are cases where it does: some chemistry holds the foam down and the viscosity index shifts with it. The defoamers Chemi Tech supplies to oil plants have been compared against the viscosity system, and at normal addition levels viscosity is not affected. The research department at Chemi Tech can run a diagnostic against your oil-based system at any time.