Focus on Research
Penn State Intercom......January 23, 2003

Fill 'er up and check the Crisco

Cooking oils boost low-sulfur diesel fuel
and engine lubricant performance

By Barbara Hale
Public Information

University engineers have shown that adding specially treated cooking oils, such as soybean, canola or sunflower oil, to mandated low sulfur diesel fuels and engine lubricants reduces friction and wear.

Joseph Perez, adjunct professor of chemical engineering and leader of the project, said, "Low sulfur diesel fuels mandated in California will soon be required in all states to enable diesel engines to meet the 2004 emission regulations. Removal of sulfur from the fuel causes severe wear problems in fuel injector systems."

"We've shown that adding as little as 10 percent of a specially treated mixture of vegetable oil and fuel reduces both friction and wear," he said.

"There has been concern that there might be an insufficient volume of vegetable oil to meet both food and fuel needs," Perez added. "However, our results show that when the vegetable oil-fuel mixture is oxygen-treated, you need only 2 percent vegetable oil to produce the same friction and wear performance as current high sulfur diesel fuel."

The University team has also conducted tests with four vegetable-based engine oils mixed with proprietary additives and compared them with a commercial petroleum-based oil. Although differences were found among the oils, all of the vegetable-based lubricants showed equivalent performance in laboratory tests and improvement in lubricity over the petroleum product.

"The biodegradable oils are effective lubricants and have the potential to displace petroleum-based products in various applications including engine oils," Perez said. "Vegetable oils are renewable resources reducing our dependency on imported oil."

Perez's research team included Wallis Lloyd, adjunct professor of chemical engineering and graduate students Kraipat Cheenkiachorn and Kimberly Wain.

The team also evaluated the role of particulate buildup on wear when new, extended use, non-vegetable diesel oils were used. The oils were run in diesel trucks and not changed for 75,000 to 100,000 miles. Make-up oil was added as required. Perez noted, "Current diesel engine emission regulations require significant reductions of particulate material and nitrogen oxides. To meet these regulations, many engines use cooled exhaust gas recirculation systems, which force 5 to 15 percent of the exhaust back through an intercooler and into the intake air. Although beneficial to the reduction of regulated emission, the system places severe stress on the lubricant since it must handle increased particulates, acidic components and water in the combustion zone from blowby past the piston rings." The team's tests showed that wear increased with increasing mileage with the major contributor believed to be the particulate content of the crankcase oil.

They noted, "To solve these problems and meet the next round of emission regulations in 2007 is a serious challenge to additive and lubricant manufacturers and may involve a quantum leap in additive technology. Renewable oils may play a significant role in the development of these future engine oils."

Barbara Hale can be reached at bah@psu.edu.

PENN STATE'S RESEARCH HERITAGE

  In Osmond Laboratory, Professor of Physic Erwin Mueller in 1955 became the first person to "see" an atom, using a field ion microscope of his own invention -- a landmark advance in scientific instrumentation that magnified these building blocks of the universe more than 2 million times.

Conflict places mentally
ill at the risk of harm

By Paul Blaum
Public Information

Individuals with serious mental disorders have an increased chance of becoming victims of violence because their relationships with others are more likely to provoke conflict, according to a Penn State criminologist.

"The risk of victimization was found to be particularly strong when mental dysfunction was accompanied by illegal drug use," said Eric Silver, assistant professor of crime, law and justice and sociology. "People with serious mental disorders, particularly those experiencing delusional beliefs or hallucinations, or those with substance abuse disorders, tend to arouse negative responses from those around them, even among family members and friends. This is because persons with mental disorders often lack social graces while they engage in conduct that appears crude, bizarre or even threatening to others."

Those around them frequently interpret their behavior as offensive when it is not meant to be, and respond by taking control measures that may lead to arguments and sometimes to violence, he added. The situation may be exacerbated by the fact that threatened or actual violent encounters often cause mentally disordered people to be avoided or rejected by others. This reduces the odds that these individuals will enjoy the social buffer of capable, caring guardianship and places them at even more serious risk of confrontation and victimization.

"My study points to a critical need for persons interacting with the me ntally ill to develop skills or competencies in dealing with them," Silver added. "Counseling services could teach managerial techniques to family members, friends, neighbors and even members of the medical and criminal justice professions. The ultimate objective is to help families, caretakers and others to cope with the mentally disordered individual while at the same time avoiding conflicts with them that may lead to victimization."

Silver is one of the few criminologists whose ongoing research focuses on the victimization of the mentally ill. Using the MacArthur Foundation's 1992-95 Violent Risk Assessment Study, Silver collected data from a survey group of 270 psychiatric patients discharged from the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh. He also interviewed a sample of 477 family members, significant others, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors and professional staffers from the neighborhoods into which the patients had been released. Silver's analysis concentrated on the first 10 weeks after the release of each patient and tracked all records of hospital readmissions and criminal arrests.

"Deeds of violence committed by study participants included acts of battery that resulted in physical injury, sexual assaults, assaultive acts that involved the use of a weapon and threats made with a weapon in hand," Silver said. "During the first 10 weeks, 7 percent of the subjects reported having been hit or beaten up; 3 percent reported having been forced to have sex; and 2 percent reported having been threatened or attack with a knife or gun."

Silver is a member of the National Science Foundations National Consortium on Violence Research and senior data analyst for the Violence Risk Assessment Study. He also is a research associate of Penn State's Population Research Institute.  

Paul Blaum can be reached at pblaum@psu.edu.

NEWS IN BRIEF

'Paperless' processing
adopted for researchers

Penn State is one of only three major U.S. research universities using and developing a new computer-based, automated, "paperless" approach to processing the documents that safeguard the public and the human and animal subjects used in scientific, agricultural and medical investigations.

Phase one of the new system, the business processing side, went online in March. Now, the developers have received a $150,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to enhance the system and extend the "paperless" approach to individual researchers.

The Protocol Review and Approval Management System or PRAMS is expected to save the Office of Research Information Systems about $10,000 a year in photocopying costs as well as automate many of the procedures researchers use.

Clinical trial planned
at medical center

Virginia Commonwealth University and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center have announced the launch of a new research study for women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) who want to become pregnant.

Recruitment is under way at 13 medical centers across the country for this National Institute of Child and Human Development -- National Institutes of Health study.

In all, the study could enroll as many as 678 women, aged 18-39, who suffer from PCOS, a disorder of the endocrine system that causes hormone imbalances, leading to irregular menstrual cycles, excess facial and body hair, weight gain and adult acne.

The goal is to test a combination of medications to bring about ovulation in women with infertility due to polycystic ovary syndrome.

Those who qualify for the study will receive free study medications, blood tests, physical exam, ultrasound, a pregnancy test and confirming ultrasound.

For information or to be evaluated for the trial at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, call Paula Coe at (717) 531-6272.

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