Mitigating the use of fossil fuels and petroleum has become increasingly important for consumers, manufacturers, and governments alike. The idea of altering ingredients or changing engineering practices to use less resources was an afterthought for many decades. But in recent years, strategies for doing this have become part of the engineering conversation. Consumers are paying attention to their carbon footprints, manufacturers are finding new solutions, and governments are finding ways to encourage this.
Greater Incentives For a Sustainable Economy
Two decades ago, the USDA launched the BioPreferred Program (created by the 2002 Farm Bill legislation) as a means to encourage the manufacturing and chemical industries to replace petroleum with biobased products derived from renewable materials. The program does this through a labeling initiative that allows companies to signal that their USDA BioPreferred certified products are environmentally friendly, as well as promote products in the USDA BioPreferred Catalog, available to government agencies and the public.
BioPreferred certified products are carefully tested to ensure that they’re mitigating the use of non-renewable resources (like petroleum), and replacing those components with nature-based renewable resources. In spite of their different chemical makeups, biobased products are shown to perform as well as or better than traditional counterparts while being cost-comparative.
The USDA estimates that biobased products have saved 300 million gallons of petroleum from being used annually. This equates to removing almost 200,000 cars from the road each year. A USDA report from July 2019 estimates that the reduced greenhouse gas emissions from using less fossil fuels prevented 12 million metric tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere in 2016.
There are other benefits for biobased products beyond the environment. That same USDA report estimates biobased products contributed over $459 billion to the nation’s economy in 2016 and supported at least 4.6 million jobs. This is further developing and helping to expand the U.S. bioeconomy, based on agricultural sources of sustainable energy, fuel, chemicals, and other products.
Master Fluid Solutions Joins the BioPreferred Catalog
On September 4, 2020, our new TRIM® HyperSol™ 888NXT was officially recognized as a USDA Certified Biobased Product, with a biobased content of 54 percent. The product was recently announced in January 2020 and is already making innovations in the metalworking field.
Until this year, the metalworking fluid industry only had product categories for straight oils, synthetics, semi-synthetics, emulsions, and micro emulsions, but our patented formulation for TRIM HyperSol 888NXT did not fit into any of those categories. With the product’s ability to provide an extremely high rate of cooling with an incredible level of lubrication (a combination of attributes that have never been achieved in metalworking fluids), TRIM HyperSol 888NXT has created an entirely new category of fluid.
Years in the making, Master Fluid Solutions R&D department began experimenting with different combinations of ingredients to create a fluid that would provide all the needed lubricity to protect equipment and provide a better experience for machine workers, formulated without the use of chemistries containing sulfur, mineral oil, and chlorine.
The product was conceived with the needs of the aerospace industry in mind (and to pass their stringent testing requirements), but it serves as a premium solution for any high-tech industry that requires fast cutting speeds and high fluid pressure, such as automotive, medical, and the energy sectors.
The new, high-performance product has shown to have environmental benefits beyond its biobased product content. TRIM HyperSol 888NXT is more effective at lower concentrations than most conventional metalworking fluids, requiring less use and less disposal. This has led to longer tool life, lower cycle times, and significant cost savings to the companies using the product.
For more information, or a trial of our products, call +1 800-537-3365 or email us at [email protected].
