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Chlorinated vs Non-Chlorinated Soluble Cutting Oils - What's the Difference?

dalmatiangirl61

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Chlorinated vs Non-Chlorinated Soluble Cutting Oils - What's the Difference? Pro's con's etc, according to mfr they are both great and have same basic description, does one work better than other, or is one just less carcinogenic than other, or......
 
The only input I can share is that chlorine is typically an extreme pressure additive, so in a tough application, it would possibly be less apt to breakdown or weld at the cutting point.

Standard Oil used to make a gear oil designated SCL which stood for Sulfur-Chlorine-Lead..all EP additives.

Stuart
 
Don't use chlorinated in anything you'll be welding. Assuming the chlorination ingredients are the same as brake clean, when heated it can produce phosgene gas, which is lethal in very small percentages.
 
The one place I worked that used chlorinated oils waa about 45 years ago. Sure was hard on my hands. If you ever do any brass parts that need plating the staining could cause problems
 
Speaking very generally, it's easier to make a heavy cutting oil with chlorine in it than without. The downsides to chlorinated oils include bad reactions with some metals (copper and copper alloys, nickel and nickle alloys, some stainless alloys). It's also been implicated in promoting stress cracking in steels and the nukies appear to think it aggravates material degradation due to neutron irradiation. Additionally, in the typical 0.25% to 2% concentrations present in cutting oils or additives, it may require disposal as hazardous waste in some localities.
 
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Speaking very generally, it's easier to make a heavy cutting oil with chlorine in it than without. The downsides to chlorinated oils include bad reactions with some metals (copper and copper alloys, nickel and nickle alloys, some stainless alloys). It's also been implicated in promoting stress cracking in steels and the nukies appear to think it aggravations material degradation due to neutron irradiation. Additionally, in the typical 0.25% to 2% concentrations present in cutting oils or additives, it may require disposal as hazardous waste in some localities.

Sounds like several reasons to avoid it, even if it is their "best seller". Always ordered from Goodson's before, and they only carry 1 type, with no info on whether its chlorinated or not. Looking at another brand and they have budget line with no mention of chlorinated or not, then 2 better (slightly more expensive) formulas with only difference being one is chlorinated and other is non chlorinated. I was leaning toward the non, but figured I needed better info to make an informed decision.
 
Chlorinated vs Non-Chlorinated Soluble Cutting Oils - What's the Difference? Pro's con's etc, according to mfr they are both great and have same basic description, does one work better than other, or is one just less carcinogenic than other, or......
It has very bad effects on titanium, so if you think you'll ever be working with Ti, better to skip it.

Maybe some other exotics as well, don't know about that.
 
Chlorine is the second biggest whore in the periodic table, second only to fluorine. It really wants to mate with anything it finds. Those hot little chips? It combines with the surface layer to insure that chip is going to have an oxide layer and will not reweld to the parent material. Remember the old tap magic, original formula? It worked a treat, better than anything else, due to the chlorine (IIRC tri-chlor). It got banned for health reasons, but in small amounts I have always worried about the effect of ulcers on my health more than most carcinogens.
 
It is my understanding that quick tests used when disposing of waste oil cannot tell the difference between simple chlorine additives and complex highly toxic chlorine compounds, meaning disposal could be an issue. No personal experience tho, always use non chlorinated
 
my local coolant shop (ometa coolants)explained over the phone how toxic it can be on the skin and adverse reactions in the air you breathe in also. remember it can also off gas and end up in your lungs. It works so damn well, but it's a risk, depending if you want to take it. the guy explained it like a chemist and was saying avoid it if you can.

i have been looking for a good coolant and this guy knew it in and out.
 
So it looks like some good reasons not to use it, so what are the good reasons to use it? They do claim the chlorinated is the "best seller", and there is no difference in price, so...?
Where you can use it, it works really well. Used to have it in a gear shaper cutting various steels, it worked better than sulfurized oils. But given the potential drawbacks I eventually quit using it. All that stuff soaks in through your skin, seems best to avoid as much as possible, to me.

(A friend died of liver cancer at 70, teetotaller but had his arms in the washrack every day, kinda made me re-evaluate chemicals. Probably too late but still, there's that contract with the devil coming up ...)
 
What about sulfurized oil?

Tom

I'm not 100% sure this is accurate, but I have some semi-jellied EP turning and tapping juice that's heavily suphurized and if you leave it on steel for any length of time it stains it a ugly black that won't come out.

Stuart
 
Where you can use it, it works really well. Used to have it in a gear shaper cutting various steels, it worked better than sulfurized oils. But given the potential drawbacks I eventually quit using it. All that stuff soaks in through your skin, seems best to avoid as much as possible, to me.

(A friend died of liver cancer at 70, teetotaller but had his arms in the washrack every day, kinda made me re-evaluate chemicals. Probably too late but still, there's that contract with the devil coming up ...)

Pretty sure I've had more than my fair share of chemical exposure too, so I'll be ordering the non-chlorinated stuff. But I am still curious why the chlorinated would be more popular. If the chlorinated was $5 less per gallon the boss/purchasing agent is going with the cheap stuff. But I'm trying to imagine the sales pitch-- (Salesman) it reacts badly with copper, nickel, SS, and titanium, might off gas phosgene if your employees weld on it, possible haz waste disposal costs, and its hell on your employees hands, and it costs the same as the non chlorinated. (Buyer) Yes, thats the stuff I want:D
 
Most very heavy-duty cutting jobs in steel require at least sulfur or chlorine, often both. The effect is chemical. As others have mentioned, it prevents chip welding and the like.

Chlorine is always provided as a chemical compound, of a kind convenient to the use. Chlorinated paraffin is common. One can also force chlorine into oils under temperature and pressure, causing a chemical reaction that binds chlorine atoms to the oil molecules.

As for personal hazard, the worst was carbon tetra-chloride, which is no longer available. It was associated with liver cancer, but the correlation wasn't all that strong.

As for phosgene generation, one can certainly make phosgene, but not enough to matter in machining, unless you are spaying incandescent chips everywhere. Like in hard turning at 10,000 rpm.

War story. When I was teenager, for unremembered reasons I was using carbon tet along with a red-hot electrical cone heater (used in a scoop reflector as a local room warmer), and started noticing this new smell, like new mown hay. ... New mown hay? ... I recall that smell from a college chemistry text that my parents had. It was the smell of phosgene! Oops! Shut everything down and went out into the clean air. Coughed for a few hours, then recovered.

Chlorinated paraffin is pretty benign - molecule too big to go anywhere. People also use flowers of sulfur (a very fine dust of elemental sulfur) in mineral oil, where the sulfur melts and acts as a high-temperature lubricant.

And then there is black sulfur cutting oils. In this case, sulfur is forced into mineral oil at high temperature and pressure, just as for chlorine. One can do both chlorine and sulfur at the same time.
 








 
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