Transportation - Energy-saving lubricant additives

A team of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and General Motors researchers has developed a new group of ionic liquids as lubricant additives that could help improve the energy efficiency of cars and trucks. The ionic liquid, when added to prototype low viscosity engine oil, boosted fuel economy by more than 2 percent compared to a commercially available synthetic 5W-30 oil, as demonstrated by an industrial standard fuel efficiency engine test. “This breakthrough ionic lubricant technology could potentially save the U.S. tens of million barrels of oil annually,” said ORNL researcher Jun Qu. The prototype oil also successfully passed a 100-hour high-temperature, high-load engine dynamometer test. The Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office sponsored the research.