Organic Additives / Compunds

[PolarisX]

Sometimes when I see oil discussed on a UOA result I'll see a comment implying the oil has compounds / additives that don't show on a UOA.

What are some examples of these? How common are they?

 

[SuperSalad]

GMOs, certain esters and carbamates are commonly used additives that won't show up on VOA or UOA reports. Since they are carbon based there is no indicator from an elemental scan. Sometimes compounds are visible to other scans like infrared spectroscopy but you don't typically get that in a UOA.

 

[Solarent]

Ashless dispersants are another one, and they are becoming increasingly more common. As are the other ones previously mentioned.

 

[SR5]

I think Valvoline, which is often dissed in the VOA section here for having a light add pack, contains a lot of organic adds that don't show up in a cheap VOA that only measures the inorganic components.

Valvoline here say their VR1 oil is not suitable for wet clutch motorcycles due to their friction modifiers present. I assume these are organic or metal-organic, as their VOA looks similar to bike acceptable oils.

 

[PolarisX]

Part of what got me asking is this is my first run on SynPower and the UOAs while showing a mediocre add pack always show good wear results.

SR5 read between the lines.