Tribological evaluation of vegetable oil-based lubricant blends

Abstract Increasing environmental pollution concerns and diminishing petroleum reserves has brought in attention towards the use of edible and non-edible vegetable oils as an alternative to petroleum oil based lubricants. Most of the vegetable oil plant contains high amount of oil in its seeds which can be converted into bio lubricant. Bio lubricant is a renewable lubricant that is environmental friendly, easily degradable and nontoxic in nature. There is a need to explore the possibility of using non edible varieties and their blends as bio-lubricant in order to achieve the twin objectives of reducing environmental and energy security of the country. Bio-lubricant have come a long way in recent years, and they are now capable of providing extremely low friction and wear coefficients under certain or highly controlled test conditions. Bio-lubricant from non-edible vegetable oils have received considerable research attention in the last decades owing to their remarkable improved tribological characteristics. Yet full potential has not been explored for the bio-lubricant production. This paper is an investigation of vegetable oils viz. Castor, Mahua and Sunflower oils using pin on disc tribotester which can prove to be premium source of biolubricants emphasizing the benefits on the rural and urban economy.