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The automotive sector has always been closely connected with the lubricants industry, with the latter continuously developing new technologies, specs and products in order to address the evolution in this segment. Electrification represents a significant change in the major powertrains and, thus, it will inevitably affect the selection, development and market share of several types of lubricants, such as lubricating greases. The evolution of the EV/HV segment will increase the demand and the importance of lubricating greases for electric motors. New challenges for grease formulation may arise from the neighboring electric currents and electromagnetic fields and higher energy efficiency requirements. In this paper, the perspectives and the projected evolution of automotive e-mobility is reported and the subsequent influence on the main grease performance requirements are analyzed. Moreover, the alteration in the applications are examined.

Many incidents associated with filter plugging have extensively been reported in microbially contaminated diesel and biodiesel fuel systems, especially under long term storage conditions. In this study a quantitative assessment of the undesirable insoluble solids produced in contaminated biodiesel fuels was carried out in order to evaluate their evolution rate during biodeterioration. For this purpose, a series of contaminated biodiesel fuel microcosms were prepared and stored for six months under stable conditions. The quantity of the particulate contaminants was monitored during storage by a multiple filtration technique which was followed at the end by a comparison with the active bioburden per ATP bioluminescence protocol. Additionally, identical microcosms were treated with a commercially available biocide in order to examine the latter’s activity both on solids formation and the microbial proliferation.