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| Not like this..... |
CHANGING engine oil is a messy
business in more ways than one. Every year, despite the various recycling
schemes available, Americans pour over 200m US gallons (750m literes) of used
engine oil into trash cans, onto land or down the drain. Most of this ends up
polluting rivers and streams. The job could become much faster, simpler and
cleaner, though, with a new invention: a plug-in oil cartridge that takes
around 90 seconds to replace.
Nexcel, as it is known, is a sealed
unit that contains both oil and oil filter, along with some electronics to
communicate with the host car’s engine-management system. An oil change begins
by selecting the vehicle’s service mode, which tells the engine’s oil pump to
transfer oil in the sump into the cartridge. That can then be unclipped and
swapped for a new one which contains fresh oil and a clean filter.
The idea comes from Castrol, the
lubricants division of BP, a large British oil company. Castrol says a Nexcel
cartridge should cost about the same as a conventional oil change, but will be
better in several ways. It will, for example, be able to monitor the condition
of the oil more closely and ensure it is replaced in a timely fashion. It will
also let an engine warm up to its most efficient operating temperature more
quickly because, when the engine is started, the cartridge pumps into the sump
only the minimum amount of oil needed to let it run smoothly. This may sound
risky, but it is a system already used in the “dry sump” engines of many
high-performance cars. In fact, the first vehicle to use Nexcel is a dry-sump
Aston Martin Vulcan, a car made for the racetrack.
Apart from quick oil changes and
rapid engine warming, the main benefits of Nexcel would be environmental.
Although garages collect oil for recycling, different grades often get mixed
together and other substances, such as brake fluid, may find their way into the
tank as well. As a result, much exhausted oil ends up burnt as furnace fuel
rather than being reprocessed as lubricants. According to Oliver Taylor, the
Nexcel project’s chief engineer, employing cartridges could increase the amount
of oil thus reprocessed from the current figure of around a tenth, to
three-quarters. The cartridges can be cleaned and reused, too.
The main problem with Nexcel is that
engine layouts will need to be redesigned to accommodate the cartridge. That is
not insuperable, but might require Castrol’s proprietary layout to become a
more open system which others can copy (perhaps for a royalty), for no carmaker
will want to be tied to the product of a single firm. Castrol is discussing
this with manufacturers, and hopes the first Nexcel-fitted vehicles will appear
in about five years’ time.
from The Economist
