Dr. George Diloyan, CEO of Powderful Solutions and Desilube on the Hidden Energy Loss Inside Industrial Machines
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — Most industrial decarbonization strategies focus on long-term transitions such as electrification, alternative fuels, or equipment replacement. George Diloyan, CEO of Powderful Solutions and Desilube, is focused on a more immediate question: how much energy is being lost inside machines that are already in operation today.
His position is straightforward.
“If you want to reduce emissions in industrial systems, you have to pay attention to friction.”
The Energy Cost of Friction
In heavy-duty and industrial equipment, a significant amount of energy is lost before productive work even begins. Research estimates that 20 to 30 percent of industrial energy consumption is lost to friction in components such as engines, pumps, gearboxes, compressors, and bearings.
That loss appears in several forms. Higher fuel and electricity use. Excess heat. Faster wear of parts. Increased maintenance demands. Each of these outcomes contributes directly to higher operating costs and unnecessary CO₂ emissions.
According to Diloyan, addressing friction offers one of the fastest paths to measurable efficiency gains because it does not require new assets or system redesigns.
“Reducing friction reduces energy demand immediately,” he says. “You improve what already exists instead of waiting years for large transitions.”
Engineering Efficiency at the Contact Surface
Powderful Solutions concentrates on the points where friction actually occurs, at metal-to-metal contact surfaces. The company develops engineered solid lubricant technologies using materials such as tungsten disulfide (WS₂), molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN).
These materials create low-friction surface films that reduce resistance and wear under high loads and demanding conditions. In applications ranging from trucking fleets and mining equipment to industrial process machinery, even 5 to 10 percent friction reduction can translate into meaningful energy savings when deployed across large numbers of assets.
However, Diloyan emphasizes that material selection alone is not enough.
“Solid lubricants only work if they are properly dispersed and remain stable over time,” he explains. “Otherwise, the benefits disappear.”
Why Dispersion Determines Performance
One of the longstanding challenges in solid lubrication has been consistency. Poor dispersion can lead to settling, uneven coverage, higher temperatures, and increased wear.
Powderful Solutions’ core capability lies in dispersion engineering, ensuring that solid lubricants remain evenly distributed and effective throughout the lubricant’s service life. This stability allows the solids to reach critical surfaces reliably, delivering repeatable performance in real-world operating conditions.
Extending Equipment Life and Reducing Waste
Lower friction leads directly to lower wear. As wear rates decline, components last longer, lubricant drain intervals can be extended, and unexpected failures become less frequent.
Operationally, this means fewer part replacements, reduced waste oil, and lower maintenance-related downtime. From a sustainability perspective, it also means less material consumption and less waste generation tied to routine operations.
Lower friction also results in lower operating temperatures, which reduces thermal stress on equipment and decreases cooling energy requirements. These effects compound over time, improving overall system efficiency.
Applications in Heavy Industry
The impact of lubrication-driven efficiency is most pronounced in sectors with continuous operation and high mechanical loads, including mining, construction, agriculture, marine transport, trucking, and energy production. In these environments, incremental performance improvements scale quickly across fleets and facilities.
Because lubrication optimization works on existing equipment, it remains one of the lowest-cost and fastest-to-implement efficiency measures available to these industries.
Extending the Approach Through Desilube
Through Desilube (www.desilubeinc.com), a chemical company producing environmentally friendly and EAL additives for lubricants, Diloyan applies the same friction-reduction principles to food, beverage, and pharmaceutical environments.
These industries rely on food-grade and environmentally acceptable lubricants, where safety and compliance are critical. Historically, such lubricants have faced performance limitations. Desilube addresses this challenge by combining EAL formulations with engineered solid lubrication technologies such as WS₂ and hBN.
Because Powderful Solutions supplies Desilube and other industrial partners, the combined ecosystem supports organizations seeking reliability, regulatory compliance, and improved environmental performance.
Lubrication as a Measurable ESG Input
More manufacturers are now evaluating lubrication efficiency as part of their broader ESG and decarbonization strategies. Powderful Solutions and Desilube support this shift with measurable data including friction coefficients, energy use, wear rates, and operating temperature changes.
These metrics allow companies to link day-to-day operational improvements directly to emissions outcomes.
“Decarbonization does not always require radical change,” Diloyan says. “Sometimes it starts by paying attention to what has been taken for granted.”
More information is available at https://powderfulsolutions.com/ and www.desilubeinc.com.
