The increasing prices of crude oil, the depletion of crude oil reserves in the world, and global concern in protecting the environment from pollution drive for searching lubricants from alternative bio sources. A bio lubricant is a renewable lubricant that is biodegradable, non-toxic and has net zero greenhouse gases. The objective of this study is to use non edible oil like castor oil as bio lubricant in order to utilize renewable resource and to solve environmental issues related to petroleum lubricants. In this study, a base catalyzed method was successfully used in the synthesis of base oil (FAME) from castor seed oil. The study uses KOH catalyzed transesterification in which other variables affecting the acid value and the methyl ester yield, such as molar ratio, catalyst concentration, reaction time and reaction temperature, were analyzed according to studies of different literature review to determine the optimum yield of FAME from the seed oil. The important properties of the base oil (density, kinematic viscosity, acid value or FFA composition, moisture content,) were compared to those of ASTM and EN standards for the FAME. The comparison shows that the castor seed oil methyl Easter could be used as an alternative base oil for bio lubricant.

Full text: IJEIR_1722_Final.pdf