High-grade Diesel Engine Oil API CJ-4 Developed by SINOPEC Research Institute of Petroleum Processing

SINOPEC Research Institute of Petroleum Processing (RIPP) has developed the diesel engine oil API CJ-4, after having passed the 9 engine tests required by the relevant API specifications to fill China’s gap in the independent development of formulations for diesel engine oil CJ-4, which is a successful attempt in breaking the foreign companies’ technical monopoly on high-grade diesel engine oils.

In order to meet the increasingly stringent environmental protection requirements, the car manufacturers have generally adopted in the diesel engines a lot of post-treatment devices such as the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), the diesel particulate f ilter (DPF), and the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) units. Since the improvements in the diesel engine performance have imposed new demand for the diesel engine oil quality, the API group on lubricating oils standards has promulgated the specification for diesel engine oil CJ-4.

In order to reduce the particulate emission and protect the exhaust gas treatment devices, the specification for diesel engine oil CJ-4 has for the first time restricted the sulfur, phosphorus and ash contents to significantly increase the difficulty in developing a proper engine oil formulation. Furthermore, the specification for engine oil CJ-4 demands that this engine oil should pass 9 engine tests, among which 8 engine test stands in the overseas laboratories were used and the average pass rate of the related 5 engine stand tests generally did not exceed 50%, because these engine tests had imposed very high requirements for the dispersancy, anti-wear, and detergent performance of the formulated engine oil CJ-4 studied thereby.

Upon attaching great importance to basic research, the RIPP’s research staffs have created a series of new evaluation methods for simulated oil tests to successfully select among more than 400 proposed oil formulations the right diesel engine oil sample, which has eventually passed the nine engine stand tests required by the specification for diesel engine oil CJ-4. The development of the said diesel engine oil can provide quality diesel engine oil and reference oil to facilitate the innovation of domestic heavy-duty diesel engine technology and enrich SINOPEC’s high-grade lubricating oil product slate for enhancing its competitive edge in the international highgrade lubricating oil market.