One of the reasons that ceramic is such a good material for pads is that it is strong yet deformable. These properties should make it ideal as an oil additive. Larger nanoparticles should stop leaks whilst the smaller ones would lubricate cylinders.
Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time before Jag fits a turbo four cylinder in the XJ. These CNs may be the only way to maintain the level of refinement we expect.
I hope to get a startup started and patent this idea. Any investors out there?

 

Dan, unfortuantely, you are making the assumption that the particles will know where to go. They are not "smart technology" and therefore I think you will find that while your idea works great in concept, in reality may work completely different. I always have to ask the question of how the ceramic would know the difference between say a gasket leak and an oil passage (as the oil passage does "leak" the oil around inside the engine). Also keep in mind that the larger particles could get caught say between the ring and the cylinder wall and if they are big enough, would actually end up scratching the cylinder wall, leading to loss of compression. Keep in mind that even conventional oil is good to overcome pressures in the 3,000 psi+ range to prevent metal on metal contact. That is really how the oil makes the metal parts "slip" past each other, ie, creates a small fluid wedge between the metal parts, not allowing them to come in contact with each other.

Maybe I am missing something here. I would love to hear more about this.

 

This could prove interesting, I'm in at the start.

My only comment is that you will require a shed load of credentials behind you before anyone in industry even thinks to listen to you. Fact of life.

Of Britt origin, I have experienced many 4 pot turbo cars, my BIL's Cosworth just being one.

If you are saying that 'refinement' is a criteria, then you need to define exactly what you mean.

I'm expecting that Mikey, Plums, Avos, Denis, and ETG amongst others will have something to say. (or they may, give a pass). IDK

 

I'm not understanding the premise here. Why are the nanoparticles necessary? In my experience, ceramics are extremely hard, brittle, and great heat insulators. Quite often, ceramics are used for grinding and polishing metals and glass. Unless nanoparticle ceramics have a different molecular structure, or are in an aggregate compound, I don't see how they could deform. They are not malleable. I don't understand why the oil lubricating an engine or turbocharger would need them.
Am I missing something here?

 

heima, the concept is that if you used a softer ceramic and had them formed into extremely tiny round *****, that as the oil carried them into the gaps between say the ***** and the race of a bearing, the ceramic would take the force (vice the oil) and then make the ball roll past the race without letting the two metals come in contact with each other. The "squishing" concept would help to keep the ceramic ball between the two metal parts vice being shot out to the side like a watermelon seed between your fingers. If you want to think about it on a larger scale, you can take a kids kick ball and lay it down on your driveway and then put a 4x8 sheet of plywood on top of the ball. If you were to stand on the plywood, you would find that it moves very easily. Same idea but on a very microscopic level.

 

Have no direct experience with this nor do I possess any knowledge on the matter.

Have read about it a couple of years back, and it does sound promising so am interested in how it develops.

I guess once this is going to be proven technology (short/long term), major oil brands will probably add it to their products.

 

There was a thread about these people
Our Technology
They show a report from TÜV in English with all sorts of claims.
I contacted TÜV - they replied
the product Gel-Revitalizant for Gasoline Engines of the company XADO-Technology Ltd. was tested by us.
The approval for using our test mark has expired. The product is no longer monitored by TÜV Thüringen.
A test report in German was issued by us. A test report in English does not exist.

so I put it on my Snake Oil shelf.
I don't thing the 'ball bearing' theory holds up.
The crankshaft bearing shells are soft and the high point loading of a microsphere would cause it to become embedded in the bearing substrate with undesirable consequences.

 

Thank you Thermo, the ball, driveway, plywood example gets the idea across.

With that considered, I guess this nanoparticle is for applications where a ball bearing and race are already in use, and you somehow want to affect its performance?

I guess my mind is thinking, "whats wrong with hydrostatic/hydrodynamic bearings?" In a hydrostatic/hydrodynamic bearing, the oil itself behaves like molecular *****, rolling between two surfaces. It takes this nanoparticle idea to an even higher level. Hydrostatic bearings are already used for the crankshaft, connection rods, and almost all piston pins and camshafts. The theory of hydrodynamic operation is also used on piston rings, valve guides, tappets, and many cam followers and valve lifters. Heck, hydrostatic bearings are already used on turbochargers.

So now I am thinking, if there is a practical application of these nanoparticles to ball bearings and races, why ceramic? Why not metal? Metal is more elastic, or more ductile than ceramic.

Just shrugging my shoulders, thinking these ceramic nanoparticles are a solution looking for a problem.

 

heima, pull out your microscope and follow me here. If you talk with anyone that does machining, one of the favorite things that they will talk about is the smoothness of metal, especially after it is machined. There is even a tool out there that you can run across the surface and it will give you a relative smoothness factor (called RHR, relative height ratio). The lower this number, the smoother the surface is. To put things into perspective, the finish left on a lot of cylinder walls is around an RHR of 60, the chrome on your bumpers and whatnot is around 5 RHR (assuming it has been polished well to give it a nice shine).

With this being said, you can think of the surface of a metal like sand paper. When you look at it from a distance, it looks smooth, but up close, it has a texture to it. So, the finer the sand paper is, the lower the ridges are. You can try this and get yourself some different grades of sandpaper and try to drag your finger across the various pieces and see which one your finger tends to drag on more. I bet you will find that the courser the sandpaper, the more your finger is going to "stick" to the sandpaper. The purpose of the oil is to fill in the gaps between the high points to make the surface smoother. That way the high points on both pieces of metal do not come in contact, resulting in excessive drag due to metal particles being moved.

The other interesting trait of oil is its "hydraulic effect". When you try to push oil out of the way, it tends to resist motion and will "squish" some, causing a large pressure to build up. This same principle is used for all hydraulic systems when trying to power rams and whatnot. But, keep in mind that the more oil you have present, the more drag that the oil is going to create though too (the effect becomes somewhat limited based on the amount of distance, this is where the metal surface comes into play). So, to create an ideal bearing, you want the smallest possible oil layer to have the least amount of drag. But, the less oil, the less "height" in the surface of the metal you can have.

To put things into a different perspective, a lot of older engines had a tolerance of say 0.010" when it came to the gaps in the bearings and whatnot. Now adays, you are looking at 0.001" or in some cases, less. To make up for this large gap, you needed an oil that was thicker and could fill that gap without being squeezed out of the way. With the smaller gaps, if you tried to run that thick of an oil, it would never make it into the surface (now you would have metal on metal). So, a thinner oil is needed to fit in that gap. This is where the nano-particle technology could possibly come into play as oil can only get but so thin as the limits of machining is approached. You could "pack" the bearing with some nano-ceramic "grease/oil" and then keep it sealed. But, now we deviate to a different topic.

Hopefully I am helping you understand what is going on and how this can be potentially a good thing. But, at the same time, I think we are still a long ways away