The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s BioPreferred program, a federal purchasing program that seeks to increase the purchase and use of goods made from biological or renewable materials, recently added SHO-500 vegetable-based honing oil from Sunnen (St. Louis, Missouri) to its online product catalog. The catalog is a searchable database designed to help find products that meet the program’s requirements.
SHO-500 is formulated without additives that many find objectionable, such as sulfur, chlorine and fluorine. The company says the oil is useful for honing applications in nuclear, aerospace and other industries in which additives cannot be used. “These oils help reduce manufacturing’s impact on the environment, and we’re confident that customers willing to make the switch to a ‘green’ fluid will find its performance to be comparable to their conventional honing oils,” says Chuck Korn, product engineer at Sunnen.
