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Before I talk about additive packages for antifreeze, let's get some perspective on the market that uses these Add Paks. Overall the domestic antifreeze market is about 200 million gallons per year. Recycling of antifreeze and recovery of glycol to make antifreeze makes up about 10% of this.
The second largest segment of the market, in terms of type of feedstock, is antifreeze made from recovered and sidestream glycols. This includes glycol recovered by distillation and reverse osmosis membranes and glycol obtained as a by product of industries such as polyester fibers and medical/analytical instrument sterilization. For the most part, high quality distilled glycols can be treated with the same additive packages as are used with virgin glycols. For high quality reverse osmosis membrane output, the same statement can be made, except that the end product is not concentrated glycol but water diluted glycol which is used as feedstock for 50/50 antifreeze. For antifreeze made from sidestream or by-product glycols, many of the same additive packages can be used, but the glycol must usually be pretreated with other additives and processes to make it suitable for use as antifreeze. I will talk more about this area later. The third segment of the market in terms of feedstock type is antifreeze recycling. I define this segment as consisting of processes which do not remove the additives but just most of the impurities and restore the undepleted additives back to adequate levels prior to reusing the antifreeze. I will also talk more about this area later. Now, the market segments of most interest to the attendees of this conference are the last two. If you operate a business primarily to collect used oil and reprocess it or to collect used oil and transfer it to others to reprocess it, you often end up collecting used antifreeze. Your customers accumulate used antifreeze along with used oil in their business and you offer to take it away as part of your total service package and often charge $0.50-$1.00 to do so. But.then you start to accumulate significant quantities of used antifreeze and if you must then turn around and dispose of it or transfer it to a larger collection facility, it may cost you a large portion of what you made in collecting it to get rid of it. and getting rid of significant quantities in a timely fashion can also be a problem. When your tank is full and you need to find companies who will take the used antifreeze off your hands before your tank is full, you can have some tense periods and find yourself giving high priority to the mundane taste of emptying your used antifreeze tank. What many of you in this situation have done or are considering doing is recovering the glycol from the used antifreeze yourself and selling it as is or making antifreeze out of it again yourself. You can also take the approach of recycling the antifreeze. In other words, not separating all of the additives from the glycol; simply cleaning up the used antifreeze and restoring the additive system to provide adequate corrosion inhibition. However, depending upon which process you use to upgrade the used antifreeze, you will encounter problems that are not factors when antifreeze is made from virgin glycol. The primary processes being used are the following:
Now, given that these are the processes being used, let's look at some of the problems associated with used antifreeze as a feedstock that make it different from starting with virgin glycol. Let's also look at how each of the processes just described addresses these problems and what might be done with additive technology to supplement each process. Problems Associated With Using Used Antifreeze as a Feedstock for New Antifreeze
There are other problems unique to used antifreeze, but I think that these are the ones most commonly encountered. SoHow do the processes that I listed earlier deal with these potential pitfalls?
Of course there are many other possible combinations. For example, many using Precipitation, Flocculation and Filtration also follow-up with Activated Carbon to reduce odor, color, glycolates and formates. However, this is not a workshop for recyclers, it is merely an overview of available technology for this industry. Now, an overview of available technology would not be complete without a discussion of the inhibitor package and additive chemistry available to deal with some of these problems left over by the glycol or feedstock recovery process. After all I am in the additive business, and this was the technology featured in my abstract. When I discuss additive packages for antifreeze, I will talk about them in terms of two different types of applications. The first is the traditional interpretation of the term "additive package". This is the combination of corrosion inhibitors and performance enhancers that is added directly to glycol to produce antifreeze. The second is used more in the sense of a specialized additive system used to pretreat reclaimed glycol or recycled antifreeze to treat some of the problems left over by the processes that I discussed earlier. Additives Inc. offers both types of additive systems and technical assistance in determining the nature of your problem and the best solution. I assume that other additive suppliers offer the same type of products and services. So let's look at the most frequently encountered problems in glycol and antifreeze recycling - that is, those problems which still remain after some of the most popular processes have completed their work. 1) High Water. When R.O. membranes, Ultra & Nano Filters, Ion Exchange, Floc & Filter or some combination of the foregoing are used, the water into the process essentially equals the water out. Most companies using these approaches and used antifreeze as feedstock, make a prediluted, 50/50 antifreeze. Admittedly, there is not much that additives can do to concentrate antifreeze. However, most people making 50/50 antifreeze in this manner also add make-up glycol or antifreeze to strengthen sub-50% processed feedstock to 50%. Some use virgin glycol or new antifreeze, but many use a less expensive recovered glycol, sidestream glycol or by-product glycol. Here is where additives can play an important role. Let me give you some examples
of problems associated with non-virgin make up
2) High Odor and Color. These are usually associated with redistilled used antifreeze and certain side stream glycols. We offer technology to greatly reduce odor and color levels prior to using these glycols as make up. If the concentrations of odor and color bodies in the glycol are sufficiently low, and they usually are, we can provide additives and techniques that can be used to convert these odor and color bodies to soluble, but innocuous impurities in the glycol. If levels are too high to allow this, we also have technology which allows you to precipitate color and odor-causing compounds out for subsequent filtration. 3) For the remaining problems on my earlier list of glycol and antifreeze recycling processes, we have additive packages that address these problems along with providing the corrosion inhibitors and performance enhancers necessary to meet ASTM Standards as you make antifreeze. No glycol pretreatment or separate steps are required; simply add our additive packages to glycol to make antifreeze and you will deal with the following problems at the same time:
Our non-virgin glycol additive packages contain phosphono-carboxylate scale inhibitors and descalants which tie up glycolates and formates. With one mechanism, our ingredients prevent deleterious effects on Reserve Alkalinity which can be caused by these compounds. By another mechanism, they prevent glycolates and formates from complexing with metals such as aluminum and aggravating pitting-type corrosion. I've spent all of my time so far on recycled glycols and antifreeze and how additive package technology can help you to make a good product in conjunction with the process that you use. I shouldn't leave without saying a few words about virgin glycol antifreeze. I know that a number of you make antifreeze from virgin glycol or from high quality distilled glycol recovered from used antifreeze.
In this industry, antifreeze additive packages are evaluated by somewhat different criteria. The Add Pak must provide the most cost effective way to make antifreeze that meets the required specifications. There are no special problems associated with the quality of the glycol, although occasionally there may be challenges presented by special specifications. For most small and medium-sized antifreeze producers it makes sense to purchase a ready-to-use additive package rather than make their antifreeze step-by-step. If you make your antifreeze step-by-step, you must support the following cost-bearing activities:
With a premixed Add Pak, you can reduce your inventory to this one item, benefit from your suppliers greater buying power on raw materials, blend a batch in less than an hour and significantly reduce your laboratory work load. Unless you are a major producer for whom the equipment, labor and laboratory fit into an infrastructure supported by high finished product volume which also supports truckload purchases of raw materials, you are probably better off buying a premixed Add Pak. Other benefits also accompany buying a premixed Add Pak. Your supplier will be expert in the antifreeze business. He will keep up with developments in specifications and regulations and will develop products that meet new requirements. He will probably offer you technical and laboratory assistance and stand behind his product should you have problems with your product. He can also help you with additive systems for other glycol-based products such as heat transfer fluids. I hope that this has at least
given you an overview of the additive package business. I'm sure
that many of you know more than I do on the subject, but hopefully
some of you found it enlightening. I'll be happy to answer any
questions.
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