Desenvolvimento de procedimentos de digestão para óleos lubrificantes.

Abstract

In this work it was developed a digestion procedure for lubricant oil based on gradual addition of sample aliquots on hot and concentrated oxidant acids. The element concentrations in the diluted digestates were determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry with axial viewing (ICP OES). The determination of these metals in lubricant oils is relevant because they can indicate wearing and contamination processes, and presence of additives. The transference of lubricant oil aliquots using either a peristaltic pump or a syringe type pump is not feasible due to the high viscosity of the sample. Thus, two alternative strategies were developed: use of a mechanized system for gradual and controlled addition of oil aliquots to concentrated acids heated by conductive heating and addition of encapsulate oil aliquots to concentrated acids heated by microwave radiation. The resulting digestates presented low residual acidities and carbon contents indicating an efficient digestion process using both procedures. The low acidity of the digestates allows the employ of low dilution factors that improve detection power for ICP OES measurements. Using conductive heating, a mass of 600 mg of oil was digested using 10 mL H2SO4. On the other hand, the microwaveassisted heated acid procedure was effective for digesting this same amount of sample using 3 mL H2SO4 plus 4 mL HNO3. Concentrated hydrogen peroxide was added in the last step in both procedures. In all cases the digestates presented residual carbon contents lower than 2.77% m/m and the residual acidities were around 1 mol/L for 10-fold diluted digestates. Determined and certified values for Ca, Mg, P, and Zn were in agreement at a 95% confidence level.