Our Research and Development division can boast of a solid technological advance thanks to its special laboratories. More than 35 chemists work to offer easily biodegradable products and lubricants that reduce the impact on the environment.
Biodegradable lubricants
CONDAT offers a wide range of lubricants or special products with readily biodegradable components, or those not classed as dangerous for the environment. These efficient products allow for long oil-change intervals and low consumption.
There are different biodegradability tests according to the performance to be achieved or the nature of the product:
- The 1st stage of biodegradability or primary biodegradability: test CEC L33
- Ultimate or ready biodegradability: test OECD 301/302
ECOLABEL certified lubricants
European regulations make it obligatory to use lubricants compliant with the ECOLABEL specification in certain defined zones, called sensitive zones, so as to limit the use of lubricants of petroleum origin as lost oils.
Created in 1992, the European ECOLABEL is the only official European ecological label that can be used in all the member countries of the European Union allowing the identification of products that respect the environment. This ecological community label is based on a multi-criteria approach: all the impacts on the environment due to provenance, manufacture, use and end of life of a lubricant are taken into account. This label guarantees the preservation of sensitive natural zones.
The Ecolabel criteria
- Ultimate Biodegradability – OECD 301 B: aptitude of a product to be transformed into a simple element by living organisms. The OECD 301B standard replaces the obsolete CEC standard (primary biodegradability)
- Ecotoxicity – OECD 201-202-203: measure of the critical concentration of a product for which a harmful effect is observed (immobilisation or death) in aquatic organisms.
- Non bio accumulation – OECD 117: the product must not be bio accumulating. Bio accumulation corresponds to a substance present in the environment that a living organism cannot transform and which will become concentrated in a part of its organism.
- The product safety sheet must not include any hazard phrase, which guarantees perfect safety for the user
- The use of renewable raw materials for which the quantity to be incorporated is variable according to the type of product
- Absence of dangerous chemical compounds according to the ECOLABEL criteria – list of forbidden substances 2000/60/EC + OSPAR
- The product must meet technical performance levels
The families of lubricants concerned by the ECOLABEL following the modifications resulting from the vote of 24 June 2011 are:
- Category 1: Hydraulic and UTTO oils
- Category 2: Greases and grease for stern tubes
- Category 3: Chainsaw oils, concrete mould-release agents, cable lubricants, stern tube oils and other lost-oil lubricants
- Category 4: Two-stroke engine oils
- Category 5: Industrial and marine gear oils