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	About additive depletion. It is a fact that engine running time will result in additives being used up. Obviously, there are various types of additives in the oil. The four types are l. Cleaning agents (disperants) 2. Inhibitors (for corrosions) 3. Anti-scuffing agents (for reduced friction 4. Stabilizers The filtration system greatly reduces the workload of the additives, since it keeps the oil in a cleaner state than it would have been without the filtration system, therefore the additive depletion rate is lower with the refiner than without it. An example of this is the inhibitors that fight corrosion. The acids which are formed in the oil are a result of the mixing of water, heat, combustion gasses & oil itself. The major catalyst for the acid formation is water. Since the filtration system effectively removes the water, acid formation is virtually nil. Therefore, the inhibitors are not used up as they would be in an engine without the filtration system.
	The same is true with the detergents which are designed to hold solid particles in suspension. Generally, these are encapsulating agents which coat and recoat the solid particles until it is large enough to be trapped by the full flow filter which generally traps solid particles down to 40 micron range. Since the filtration system spin on filter element filters down to 3 microns, less of the encapsulating agents (detergents) are needed for the solid particles to be trapped by the filter. As previously stated, we do agree that additives are used up. Therefore, are the additives eventually depleted from the oil? No. 1 if the oil has a high enough percentage of additives to begin with, then the make up oil (oil added to the engine due to normal consumption by the engine, including filter change ) will keep the additive percentage at a proper level. "Total Base Number" refers to the additive level. This is not expressed as a percentage, but merely as a number. A very high quality oil with a good additive package will have a base number of 10.0 or thereabouts. As the quality of the specific brand of oil decreases, so will the base number (or the percentage of additives in the oil). Remember that basically all mineral oils are the same and that the major difference between the oil brands is the amount and type of additives. As an example, brand X heavy Duty has a Total Base Number (TBN) of 4.83, whereas brand Y Extra Heavy Duty has a base number of 10.0. Immediately you can see that brand X additive package is less than half if that of brand Y.