Where the
world gathers for metal finishing
Q&As since 1989


-----

Detection of oil/grease on aluminum surface

2006

1)Suggest me some methods to detect and quantify very,very small amounts of oil/grease on aluminum tubes.

2)Suggest me some methods to detect and quantify the formations of Aluminum oxide on aluminum tubes.

Steve Karun Vijayan
mechanical engineering student - Chennai, Tamilnadu, India

---

2006

If the tubes are small, bake it at 125F and weigh a pyrex dish or porcelain evaporation dish. Soak the tube with a suitable solvent. Evaporate the solvent, bake the dish again and weigh. This requires a very good analytical balance and does not discriminate between anything that comes off of the tube. To identify the oil or grease, it will take a good operator, a gas chromatograph and a great chromatographic library.

I guess a scanning electron microscope might work, but I would expect at least 50% variation in the results.

Now, tell us why you want to do this and the size of the parts.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida