Will liquid crystal goo from LCDs replace oil as engine/machine lubricant?

edkwon

edkwon

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http://www.motivemag.com/newsindex_motive.shtml

It's called a bearing press, and it works like this: A polished metal cylinder spins on the end of a motor shaft. Above that cylinder is a hemicylindrical bearing shell ? complete with lubrication feed lines ? that's shaped to exactly the size of the spinning cylinder. Oil is fed to the bearing shell as it's pressed onto the cylinder, and the amount of torque that it takes to spin the cylinder is measured at different loads.

Researchers at German firm Farunhofer-Gesellschaft took torque measurements using a variety of automotive oils ? the 5W20s, 10W30s, and 20W50s that we're accustomed to ? and found that they all performed nearly identically. But when they tried running a lubricant made of the same gel that is used in LCD screens (you've seen it spurt out as an inky blob if you've been unlucky enough to break your iPhone's display), the amount of friction in the bearing dropped to nearly zero.

The breakthrough is the result of the way crystals form lattices. Molecules in liquid crystals have a certain orientation ? they point one way, similar to a box of matches where the heads all face the same direction. When used on a slide bearing like in an automotive engine, the orientation of the crystals proves to be slipperier than any refined dinosaur juice in existence. The company hopes to have a liquid crystal lubricant on the market in five years, initially in industrial applications where pressure and temperature demands are lower. But with the push for greater fuel economy, and the resultant demands of low parasitic losses, we can see this becoming the next big thing in the automotive arena.
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Wow. Just wow. But that would mean that engine oil prices would literally reach the skies, since there's... what? 20 grams of LCD in a monitor, and thats rather expensive, while a car needs a few liters of oil.

Unless it's a dry-sump small-size engine, where the amount of oil, I guess, is smaller, since you don't have to fill the crank case with the stuff.
 
vikiradTG2007 said:
Wow. Just wow. But that would mean that engine oil prices would literally reach the skies, since there's... what? 20 grams of LCD in a monitor, and thats rather expensive, while a car needs a few liters of oil.

Unless it's a dry-sump small-size engine, where the amount of oil, I guess, is smaller, since you don't have to fill the crank case with the stuff.
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I'm sure price will be the first of many problems that come up. Given that LC leakage from displays isnt a really big issue when its found in monitors but lubricant leakage from engines is common, let's just wait to hear the health report years from now that LC is a carcinogen or causes birth defects in baby ducks or whatnot.

Plus i bet if its used, prices on common electronic productions (digital watches, LCD HDTVs and monitors, alarm clocks, ipods) will skyrocket because of the sudden increased demand for LC.

Those are all my guesses of course based on previous trends.
 
The real question is how long before F1 is running this? I wouldn't put it past them to pay 50k for an oil change.
 
If LC is some sort of goo (in terms of consistency), then F1 won't even give it a second glance. F1 engine oils must be very thin, almost water-like in their consistency, in order to help the engine keep the revs up.
 
The big question is how it performs under high temperatures. I suppose you don't need a full crank case of the stuff, but could use it as an oil additive with regular or synthetic to further reduce friction.

I'm just waiting for someone to fill an engine with Buckyballs to see what happens.
 
TBoneUs said:
The real question is how long before F1 is running this? I wouldn't put it past them to pay 50k for an oil change.
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I think motorsports like F1 are low on the priority ladder for applications of this potential new tech. I'm far more interested in real world industrial/commercial and automotive use since those would be the highest volume use.
 
edkwon said:
I think motorsports like F1 are low on the priority ladder for applications of this potential new tech. I'm far more interested in real world industrial/commercial and automotive use since those would be the highest volume use.
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If it's gooey and doesn't work well at over 130 degrees, which is the maximum working engine temperature for a F1 engine (not in the combustion chamber), then no racing engine will ever use it.

Commercially, it might work in engines that don't work at high temperatures. Mostly in diesels, I guess, since they heat up a lot slower than petrol engines, so the heat output is lower and the engine temperatures are lower as a consequence.
 
vikiradTG2007 said:
If it's gooey and doesn't work well at over 130 degrees, which is the maximum working engine temperature for a F1 engine (not in the combustion chamber), then no racing engine will ever use it.

Commercially, it might work in engines that don't work at high temperatures. Mostly in diesels, I guess, since they heat up a lot slower than petrol engines, so the heat output is lower and the engine temperatures are lower as a consequence.
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Stop assuming you know anything about the viscosity of LC based on me giving it the nickname 'liquid goo' i used for the thread title, it could be a runny thin liquid for all we know.

You're making all these educated sounding assumptions based on no facts.
 
Interesting, but it makes me think. I remember watching a show where a guy was building an engine for some riced out Supra. He mentioned that for the initial start-up after building he only uses the cheapest oil he can find (then after the break-in period he switches to synthetic). He said that the synthetic oils are way to slick to let the engine break-in properly.

So if LC is as slick as they say, depending on the application, will a piece of machinery break-in correctly?

I also remember reading about engine parts being ceramic coated and apparently ceramic on ceramic also provides near frictionless operation and therefore no oil is needed. Am I remembering that correctly?
 
Well, that is just the opinion of one guy. I think VW puts synthetic in from the factory on the New Beetle and some other models. I'd more readily trust a team of German engineers than some guy building a Supra in his garage.
 
Blind_Io said:
Well, that is just the opinion of one guy. I think VW puts synthetic in from the factory on the New Beetle and some other models. I'd more readily trust a team of German engineers than some guy building a Supra in his garage.
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I used to work in a VW garage as my summer job, and AFAIK synthetic oil goes to almost all new and more powerful engines. Because the more powerful engines are built with smaller tolerances, so they need better quality oil, which maintains a steady consistency.

I think that liquid-crystal oil, we'll find in F1 or racing first, before it gets into mass production. For mass production you need it to be reasonably priced, well tested, you'll need different/new oil filters, etc..
 
Blind_Io said:
Well, that is just the opinion of one guy. I think VW puts synthetic in from the factory on the New Beetle and some other models. I'd more readily trust a team of German engineers than some guy building a Supra in his garage.
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so true, there's just way too many opinions on what the best way to break-in a motor is. and most of the time it's based on personal experience instead of scientific study, which makes it questionable at best.
 
pepitko said:
I used to work in a VW garage as my summer job, and AFAIK synthetic oil goes to almost all new and more powerful engines. Because the more powerful engines are built with smaller tolerances, so they need better quality oil, which maintains a steady consistency.

I think that liquid-crystal oil, we'll find in F1 or racing first, before it gets into mass production. For mass production you need it to be reasonably priced, well tested, you'll need different/new oil filters, etc..
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I know for a fact that the 2.0TFSI motors come with synthetic from the start...although the first oil change come really quick.
 
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I can also say for a fact, I own a 2.0T MKV GTI, that new VW's come with synthetic oil and it is recommended that they always run synthetic oil.
 
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