MODIFIED NATURAL OILS WITH NEW FATTY ACID TRAITS FOR INDUSTRIAL LUBRICANT APPLICATIONS
The wide use of natural oil triglycerides as feedstocks for lubricants is often limited by low thermo-oxidative stability and poor lowtemperature flow behavior. The emergence of new oil varieties (e.g., high oleic soybean oil and “High Stability High Oleic” algae oil) addresses these fundamental issues through compositional changes in the fatty acid profile. Functionalization of the unsaturation of the fatty acids can further enhance the thermo-oxidative stability of the oil and also has implications for other important lubricant properties such as viscosity, viscosity index, and pour point. The fatty acid composition is key to expanding and improving the properties of these modified oils as high performance lubricant base fluids. A series of lubricant candidates using triglyceride oils of varying compositional traits (e.g., high oleic, low polyunsaturated and low saturate) have been examined in which the fatty acid unsaturation has been converted into di-ester derivatives.