Looking For a Water Soluble Coolant That is Conductive

I'll probably be of no help, however after reading your question it occurred to me that possibly rather than replacing your present coolant you might be able to add a chemical to it that would promote electrical conductivity in the residue. I googled it and checked out the first website, possibly they have some information that would be of help .creativematerials.com .

Your idea is a good one. That is something to think about and experiment with. Any idea or suggestion is appreciated. Thanks and this is something I will continue to look into.

It's nice to know even screwball ideas are appreciated thank you. You might want to try posting the question for an additive in the chemical and materials section. There's bound to be some good chemists to give you a hand and let you know if it's possible. I did a little more looking around and carbon Black is being used in some applications to promote electrical connectivity , seems to be soluble in both water and oil, don't know how much of a mess it would make (undoubtedly a big one) or how much it would interfere with your production. Good luck.

typically these types of parts are cleaned and deburred after machining. I don't know of any specific cutting fluids that are conductive, thats not their purpose.

I work in aerospace and we typically have to clean, deburr and paint and/or chemically convert most of the parts. The only exceptions are some stainless and titanium parts. They are painted and coated for corrosion resistance.

The point I'm geting to in a round about way is that cleaning is probably your best solution. There are a number of alkaline cleaners that will remove the oils very effectively.

The next question is are your materials prone to corrode if the oils are stripped?

You don't say what type of process. If you are machining the part what about changing the method of cooling to Vortex tube. Then you would not be placing any contaminates on the part.

Their is no cutting involved. The part is actually a steel strip that is formed by rollers. This is all metal to metal contact and the forming conducts heat and wear on tooling, this is why we want to use coolant. The steel is only .025'' thick and is galvanized so the oils are not necessary. Conductivity is what we are looking for.

Vortex tube should work as well if there is room in the machine to place it so that it is cooling at the point of contact. May need several depending on the amount of contact area.

If in all the processes of the part, contamination from the processing is causing it to fail. That it would not be advantages to purchase a cleaner. Today it is the coolant that is the cause of failure. Tomorrow something else and we can not predict what it could be. Cleaning the part before assembly would catch the majority of the contaminates that would cause failure.

Might be a chemical nightmare but many salts are conductive in water.

The problem then might not be the work but the tool.

Can you replace the water lost to evaporation? Pure water should thin the emulsion back out.

2cents from

Brad

salt water?

I have not much expertise in this, aside from recommending environnementally safe cooland and degreaser, you are adding effluents to your process.

I am curious on what would make your part non conductive, your rolling process should remove most oxides and you would have a hard time making it non conductive.

This is a question out of ignorance not a real suggestion.

Why can't you use pure water? It's not conductive: I know, but, it won't leave any insulating deposits.

That is exactly what popped into my head. If you are using this as a coolant only and not a lubricant, why not just water?

It doesn't sound like conductivity during fabrication matters, only afterwards.

An (expensive) alternative would be to get rollers that are cooled from the inside. I've seen those, but don't know anything about them.

I'm mostly guessing here about using water only but typically coolants for this type of manufacturing use oils for 3 purposes, first is reduced friction(also reducing heat), second is to protect the equipment from rust/oxidation and 3rd is to carry away excess heat.

Sounds to me like a cleaning process failure if residue is being left on the part. You should contact the manufacturer of the coolant to see why residue is being left on. Depending on a conductive coolant to maintain conductivity is not a great idea. You have to study the long term effects of the residue it leaves.

EMD machines use a conductive coolant for the arc, google "edm cutting fluid"

You may want to look at them. It looks like you need a lubricant more than a coolant.

Use soda and water mix instead of soluble oil its slippery and conductive.Just wash your galvanised product with fresh water after it is formed.

The alkaline mix wont hurt your steel parts on the machine but look out for brass copper and aluminium.

These are all great ideas. I looked into the edm fluid "dielectric" fluid and it is non conductive, unfortunately. Vortex tube looks excellent for keeping the part cool but we need some lubrication. Water , that is a good idea and after thinking about it the only way that we could make water work would be to use a different tooling material. The water would make the tooling rust. We would have to make our tooling out of stainless steel and stainless is expensive and I don't think it will hold up as well as the tool steel that we use now. The part is galvanized but the tooling is all tool steel and cold roll. All of these ideas are great and I appreciate them all. I will start a post in the chemical area as suggested above. This is my first post and I can see that this is an great place to share ideas and learn ideas. Great community. Thanks.

The water in the soluble oil you are using is just as likely to rust your steel components as any other chemical or lubricant disolved in water.

Have you tried ethylene glycol and similar in place of the oils? If necessaty, a very small amount of an inorganic salt (NaCl, KCL etc) can be added to the solution to increase conductivity.

If you Google "conductive oil" you will get a bunch of hits. I don't know if any of these can be used for machining.

Tad

The ethylene glycol idea might be a good one. Or if toxicity is a problem use propylene glycol. If you make the solution alkaline and add sodium nitrate or nitrite, and Tri sodium benzoate you would have basically automotive antifreeze. The glycols, especially PG will pull enough water from the air to stay conductive.

Don't use any coolant at all. There are many different cutting tools with coatings that may fit your application. Ceramic cutting tools operate without coolant.

OOps, no cutting. Nevermind!

I suggest using water based metal-working fluids. If my memory serves me, sodium nitrate in water works great in many applications like yours. You need a 'surface active' agent like the nitrate to form super-hard wear surface on the tool edge. Plain water don't work. phosphates will also form super-hard wear surface. The zinc rich layer on the stock is complicating the issue, it being highly abrasive to most all steel based tools. You may have to experiment with surface coated rollers-plasma spray coated with hard carbide or nitride to achieve satisfactory tool life.