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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania » Eastern Regional Research Center » Sustainable Biofuels and Co-products Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #308761
Title: Potential of vegetable oils for lubricants

Author
item SHARMA, BRAJENDRA - University Of Illinois
item Liu, Zengshe - Kevin
item Erhan, Sevim

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/9/2016
Publication Date: 11/12/2014
Citation: Sharma, B.K., Liu, Z., Erhan, S.Z. 2014. Potential of vegetable oils for lubricants. Book Chapter. 269-292.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Vegetable oils offer significant advantages in terms of resource renewability, biodegradability, and comparable performance properties to petroleum-based products. The petroleum-based lubricants render unfavorable impact on the environment. With the growing environmental concerns, seed oils are finding their way as lubricants for agricultural, marine, forestry and industrial applications. Their amphiphilic character makes them an excellent candidate as lubricants. The wide use of vegetable oils is restricted due to low thermo-oxidative stability and poor cold flow behavior. This chapter will discuss screening of various seed oils, genetically modified oils, and chemically modified oils as basestock for lubricant formulations; and how oxidative stability and cold flow properties can be improved with the use of chemical additives. Important lubricant properties, such as oxidative stability; low temperature flow properties; friction and wear behavior; and viscosities of these oils will also be discussed. Among these oils, the best ones are high-oleic vegetable oils which when formulated with chemical additives, provide lubricants exhibiting improved low temperature properties, superior oxidative stability and wear properties.