ABSTRACT
Vegetable oils are already used as lubricants because of their superior lubricity, good anticorrosion properties, better viscosity–temperature characteristics and low evaporation losses in industrial applications of rolling, cutting, drawing and quenching operations, either alone or in combination with mineral oils. Vegetable oils contain two main classes of fatty acids: saturated fatty acids and unsaturated fatty acids. The conjugated fatty acids/vegetable oils are used as effective monomers to prepare different biopolymers and resins and are more important to the paint and food industries, but also have a role in lubricant industry to make high viscosity oils. Vegetable oils have been heat-bodied to improve their characteristics. Lubricants can be classified into two main application categories: automotive and industrial lubricants. The market for soybean oil lubricants will be driven by environmental concerns, and controlled by economics and performance issues. Mineral oils will be cheaper and provide certain original equipment manufacturers desired performance characteristics in many uses.
