Development of bio lubricant from castor oil via chemical softening: An ease towards sustainable substitute

Abstract

In the 21st century, Environment sustainability is considered to be the superficial,coherent vision in the development of a societal goal. At the moment, the prices of crude oil have been skyrocketing which results into the depletion of petroleum reservoirs contributing to environmental pollution cum hazards. This has inspired researchers globally in the development of non-toxic, renewable, and sustainable. ecologically sound alternative i.e., Bio-lubricant which will aim to replace conventional petroleum-based lubricants towards a green and clean society deliberately. The proposed work introduces the design and development of biodegradable bio-lubricant from commercially available, non-edible castor oil via chemical softening by the virtue of two successive transesterification stages. The presented study, explores the chemical modification process of vegetable oil to intensify the yield, grade, and physicochemical vis-a-vis tribological properties of the produced lubricant. The proposed method of production of castor oil-based bio-lubricant via chemical softening is made to achieve a high yield i.e., exceeding 97.4 % with a kinetic investigation for optimized parameters including catalyst concentration, alcohol/oil ratio, temperature, additives calibrated to be 1% w/w NaOH, 6:1, 65 °C and 15% SLS (Sodium lauryl sulfate) respectively for the maximum conversion with minimum costs associated with the production of ecologically viable castor oil-based bio-lubricant. The peaks observed at 1730 cm−1 and 3025 cm−1 are associated with the stretching vibration of the carbonyl group (C = O) in the ester bond and the stretching of the C–H bond vibration in the fatty acid chains, respectively. This has been confirmed through Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and evaluated through ASTM analyses.