Introduction:
To move car doors or house doors without that loud screeching sound, we use different industrial lubricants and various types of greases for their smooth movements. These lubricants can also be used for garage doors, heavy appliances and machines, cars and even on electrical parts. Grease is used as lubricant for more than 90% of the bearings. It resists water, reduces the friction, and helps with sealing. To choose an appropriate lubricant or grease becomes difficult sometimes as there are so many options available in the market.
In today’s article we will talk about two such lubricants – Lithium grease & Silicone grease. It is okay to say that they both provide high quality and versatility. Nonetheless learning some key differences between the two can help you decide which one to use when. We will study these differences in detail.
What is Lithium Grease?
Invented in the early 1940s, lithium grease was created by reacting lithium hydroxide with fatty acids. Modern lithium soap act as a thickener in the process. It is considered more favourable grease all over the world and has much higher production as compared to all other greases combined. It has gained so much popularity because of its multi-function properties – excellent high temperature and water resistance, exceptional shear or mechanical stability and distinctive storage stability.
Lithium grease is very thick, and this means that once lubricated onto moving parts, it does not break down under heavy loads. It stays there and does its duty. It is a stable compound and because of its non-corrosive property, it does not react chemically with substances it comes in contact with which makes it a perfect choice for high humidity environments when metals are exposed to salt water. Its superior adhesion quality to metal saves time on reapplication as it stays where its applied.
What is Silicone Grease?
When a thickener (amorphous fused silica) is combined with silicone oil(polydimethylsiloxane) it creates a translucent, viscous, white paste waterproof grease which is known as Silicone Grease. Depending upon the formula used to create this grease, a white paste is formed whose lubricating properties depend on the formula used to create the mixture.
Silicone grease is well known for its resistance to extreme temperatures, high adhesiveness, and stability. It can be considered as an ideal grease for harsh environments because of its resistant to many chemicals and the grease being waterproof too. Because of its property to repel moisture, it helps in keeping the moisture out of the electrical connectors. Moreover, it is also used as a lubricant to prevent any sticking and to reduce the level of friction. It reduces downtime and repairing costs of various equipment by keeping parts moving smoothly as this grease prevents corrosion and increases the lifespan of your equipment.
What are the differences between Lithium Grease and Silicone Grease?
Even though like each other, we can classify the differences between these two greases into 4 categories that are as below:
- Structure:
The primary difference between lithium grease and silicone grease is its structure. Lithium grease is made up of soap and oil which helps in keeping lithium grease into a semi solid state. While silicone grease is made up of silicone oil which is known for its high viscosity. This oil keeps the silicone grease into more of a solid state.
- Temperature:
If the equipment or materials on which you must apply the lubricant is exposed a lot to heat or high temperatures, then you must select Silicone – based grease. As the silicone oil can stand high temperatures better as compared to lithium grease. Lithium grease can work perfectly well where one of the key factors is not high temperature. The reason being that the oil used in making lithium grease can start evaporating at such high temperatures. Lithium grease can be used for more of conventional purposes like applications on hinges of the door. At the same time, silicone grease can be more suitable for some definitive purposes like valves and O-rings.
- Adherence to various surfaces:
Lithium grease can detach itself from the surfaces quickly if not applied properly because it is made from soap and oil. While silicone oil has a lot stronger bond with the surfaces which makes silicone grease a better option. One such example can be bicycle gears which uses silicone grease.
- Resistance and Staying Power:
The melting point of lithium is lower as compared to silicone; hence lithium grease does not solidify in extremely low temperatures. Lithium grease can be considered excellent for using in humid and wet weathers as it has high water resistance as compared to silicone grease. Silicone grease contains same level of acids to create a reaction with metal surfaces which may lead to corrosion while lithium grease does not.
Apart from these, another major difference between both the grease is – Soap present in Lithium grease can act as a surfactant and draw lot of dust particles and dust on the surfaces. While silicone oil does not have this property and it is not a surfactant.
Conclusion:
So, we hope that you learned in detail about what are lithium and silicone grease and understood that even though they have some similar attributes, they are not entirely similar. And that both the greases are used to solve different purposes. We would be glad to have feedback from our readers. It helps us to give better output every time when we get connected to our viewers. Keep viewing and stay connected with us.