Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania » Eastern Regional Research Center » Sustainable Biofuels and Co-products Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #416576
Research Project: Chemical Conversion of Biomass into High Value Products

Location: Sustainable Biofuels and Co-products Research

Title: Exploring the additive compatibility and tribological behavior of regular and high oleic soybean oil

Author
item BHOWMIK, PIASH - University Of North Dakota
item Sharma, Brajendra - Bk
item Sarker, Majher
item MAINALI, KALIDAS - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item WANG, YACHAO - University Of North Dakota
item TANG, CLEMENT - University Of North Dakota
item ROY, SOUGATA - Iowa State University

Submitted to: Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/6/2024
Publication Date: 11/25/2024
Citation: Bhowmik, P., Sharma, B.K., Sarker, M.I., Mainali, K., Wang, Y., Tang, C., Roy, S. 2024. Exploring the additive compatibility and tribological behavior of regular and high oleic soybean oil. Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering. 10:1488407. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmech.2024.1488407.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmech.2024.1488407

Interpretive Summary: Lubricating oils are essential in machines as they prevent wear and tear by creating a protective layer between moving parts. Petroleum-based lubricants find extensive use in many industries due to their excellent lubrication qualities, easy availability, and chemical stability. There has been a growing concern for finding alternatives to petroleum oils due to their non-renewable nature, toxicity, and lack of biodegradability. To replace petroleum-derived lubricants, there has been a surge in research investigations to explore the potential of bio-based oils. Soybean oil as such or chemically or genetically modified has been extensively investigated as biobased lubricating base oil, due to its renewability, biodegradability, and non-toxicity, but still falls short on oxidative stability. This study investigates the evaluation of different lubricant additives to improve the overall performance of the formulated regular and high-oleic soy-based lubricants. This work has the potential to be extrapolated to food waste, like waste cooking oil, to increase their economic value, and utilization of vegetable oils, thereby increasing the demand for farm products.

Technical Abstract: As the demand for bio-based lubricating oils continues to rise, there is a growing focus on exploring diverse oil types. Particularly noteworthy is the surge in demand for high oleic oils, which offer enhanced stability and a richer oleic acid content compared to their regular oil counterparts. This study is focused on revealing the compatibility of both regular and high oleic soybean oils with select antiwear and antioxidant additives, along with a comparative performance analysis of these additives. Reciprocating friction, wear, and electrical contact resistance-based analyses were conducted to evaluate additive compatibility and wear mechanisms at room temperature lubrication conditions. Interestingly, it was observed that additive compatibility for regular soybean oil (RSO) was better against high oleic soybean oil (HOSO). RSO with additives showed around 28% reduction of wear volume whereas, it was only 8% for HOSO with additives. Additional physicochemical property analyses were conducted on the lubricants. The surfaces of the samples were also characterized using SEM-EDS to understand the wear behavior.