Plants Give Rise to Biodegradable Base Oils

Made from organic fatty acids found in various plant (bio)-derived oils, estolides as highly functional biosynthetic oils have numerous uses in lubricant, automotive, marine and personal care applications.

Plants give rise to biodegradable base oils. Photo: Denes Kozma/Unsplash

Scientists at the ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois, began researching the estolides in 1991—first, using fatty acids from a new oilseed crop called meadowfoam and, later, from canola, sunflower, safflower, lesquerella, castor and high oleic-acid soybeans.

Tests showed estolides showed excellent oxidative stability, which is a measure of the service life of a lubricant.

Other biobased lubricants that were evaluated for comparison required the use of costly additives to keep them from oxidizing and performing poorly, according to Steve Cermak, Terry Isbell, Thomas Abbott (retired) and others with the ARS center's Bio-oils Research Unit in Peoria.

The estolides also scored high marks on the opposite end of the spectrum, retaining desirable pour point properties when used in cold temperatures of -22 to -52 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, estolides performed as well as or better than standard petroleum-derived base oils.

In addition to coming from a renewable resource—namely, castor or soybeans—estolides promise to leave behind a lighter "environmental footprint" than mineral-oil-based lubes. Testing also showed that the estolides components of a finished engine are biodegradable.

Biosynthetic Technologies, an Indianapolis-based company, created a synthetic motor oil using the estolides technology and put it to the ultimate road test: lubricating the engine of a Las Vegas taxicab during a 150,000-mile, 18-month trial run involving stop-and-go traffic.

In this test, the engine using estolides-based motor oils was cleaner and showed much less varnish than those engines using commercially available mineral-oil-based motor oil. (U.S. Department of Agriculture)

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