Lithium grease: What does it all mean?

So you’re looking for a grease, you’ve seen many references to ‘Lithium EP2’ but you’re not sure what it means or whether it is relevant to your needs? Let’s try and cut through the jargon!

What is grease?

First of all, what is a grease? Over the years grease has become a staple of the engineers toolkit and has found a number of different uses. However primarily it is a form of lubricant specifically designed for parts that need infrequent lubrication or where oil would not stay in place e.g. rolling element bearings. Grease is made up of a number of constituent parts, one of which is oil which can typically make up 90% of the formulation. It is the oil in the formulation that actually does the lubricating. However oil poured into a bearing would very quickly find its way back out of the bearing! Therefore the oil needs a carrier of some kind to keep it in place and release it slowly into the parts to be lubricated. This, in essence, is the role of a grease.

What is lithium grease?

There are 3 main constituent parts to a grease. Find out more here