Products and Customers

Sustainability reconsidered OMC₂ technology to reduce friction and wear

Find out how TUNAP's OMC2 technology redefines sustainability by effectively reducing friction and wear with high-performance lubricants such as TUNGREASE OMC2-2 plus. Discover the environmental benefits and cost savings of this innovative technology.

TUNAP Sustainability Report | Environmental | GRI: 306-3

The importance of friction and wear

Friction and wear are very important when it comes to sustainability. According to estimates from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the costs for friction and wear make up about 1.2 to 1.7 per cent of Germany’s gross domestic product. Measured against 2020 GDP, this equates to almost 40.0 to 56.6 billion euros. Friction and wear can be significantly reduced with the help of high-performance lubricants, such as TUNGREASE OMC₂-2 plus. This saves not only costs, but also resources and it reduces energy losses.

Sustainable lubricants

The usual approach to improving sustainability focuses on the design and manufacture of the product. This also works with lubricants by taking aspects such as renewable raw materials, biodegradability and water hazards into account during development. But often, losses in terms of the performance of the lubricant have to be accepted. Disadvantages include shorter re-lubrication intervals and, consequently, increased lubricant consumption or limited wear protection and, as a result, shorter component life. The friction behaviour can also be significantly worse, which leads to higher energy losses and, thus, lower efficiency.

Just a few grams of high-performance lubricant are enough

TUNAP OMC₂ technology focuses mainly on optimising the application in which the lubricant is used. The contribution that the lubricant makes in terms of sustainability during its use in machinery and systems is, by far, the main focus. This can be seen in the following examples: investigations have shown that the life of power tools that have been lubricated with the high-performance lubricating grease TUNGREASE OMC₂-2 plus can be prolonged by almost a factor of five compared to a conventional lubricant. This means that just a few grams of TUNGREASE OMC₂-2 plus are needed to save 4 devices.

Functional principle of the OMC₂ technology

As the name suggests, TUNGREASE OMC₂-2 plus contains high-performance lubricating grease, the TUNAP OMC₂ technology. The principle of OMC₂ technology is called micro-flow smoothing. This means that roughness on metal surfaces in the micro and nanometre range are smoothed by physico-chemical reactions and a very robust protective coating is created. This has two effects: on the one hand, the smoothed surfaces can slide past each other more easily, which significantly reduces friction. On the other hand, the material ratio of the contact surfaces is much larger, which means that high stresses are distributed across larger areas and that the protective coating is also protected against wear.

Optimization of applications

In other words, the secret behind TUNGREASE OMC₂-2 plus is the effective optimisation of metal surfaces to minimise energy losses and prevent wear. TUNGREASE OMC₂-2 plus also exhibits a very high degree of ageing stability with the result that the life of components such as anti-friction bearings, gears, sleeve bearings and linear slides are significantly extended.