ABSTRACT

Owing to the ever-increasing prices of conventional fuels, the depletion of crude oil reserves and their impacts on the ecosystem have brought a new interest in bio-based lubricants originating from plant seed oils. This chapter discusses the structural modification techniques to formulate biolubricant basestocks using plant seed oils and their derivatives. This chapter has been divided into two sections. The first section gives a brief orientation on the introduction of conventional lubricants, chemical composition, their impacts on the ecosystem, need for the alternatives, and their limitations. The second section is focused on the structural modification techniques to formulate biolubricant basestocks.