Temperature Effect on Pump Oil and Alkanes Evaporation

There are many products, including hard drives, which require trace amounts, on the order of several milligrams, of lubricants for proper operation. The following study investigated the evaporation rates of pump oil and several alkanes, which have a wide range of applications. Both static and dynamic temperature tests were conducted. The rate of evaporation of the test specimen was determined as the mass loss per unit time. Using the Arrhenius equation, the activation energy of the evaporation process, Ea, can be calculated as the slope of the best fit line for a plot of the ln(k) vs. 1/T (where k represents the evaporation rate). The alkanes were compared using the activation energy required for evaporation as model systems. Pump oil was also evaporated from two types of microchannels. Developed testing procedures help speed up new lubricant formulations qualification.