Vegetable based cutting fluid - an environmental alternative to grinding process

The development of lubricants like, cutting fluids was traditionally based on mineral oil as a base Fluid. This fact is related to the good technical properties and the reasonable price of mineral oils. The Report to the Club of Rome (1972) and the two oil crises of 1979 and 1983, however, elucidated that mineral oil is on principle a limited resource. Also mineral oil is its poor biodegradability and thus it's potential for long-term pollution of the environment and workers health. The growing demand for biodegradable materials has opened an avenue for using vegetable oils as an alternative to petroleum-based polymeric materials. Thus, this work presents a new water based grinding fluid formulation able to meet both the performance and environmental requirements for CBN grinding. The new fluid concept consisting of a high concentration (up to 40%) of sulfonate vegetable oil in water is proposed and tested. In this way it was possible to combine high lubricity, better heat conductivity and good environmental properties in one fluid. The results from practical tests using the new fluid show good performance on vitrified CBN grinding, which are comparable to the obtained with mineral oil.