ABSTRACT
Lubricants are a uniform mixture of interacting base oils and additives [1-4] where trying to track down the function of each is a “slippery” endeavor indeed. Biobased materials, once prevalent in the industry [5], have attracted renewed interest in recent years [6-10]. Vegetable oils make a good starting point [11,12] due to favorable life cycle [13], government policies [14], and renewability considerations. However, they suffer from oxidation instability [15-18], especially the highly unsaturated oils [18], and high pour points [19], especially the highly saturated oils. Improvements in these properties have been the focus of many patents where oligomers [20-23], hydroxy vegetable oils [24,25], and ester-forming [26-28] technologies have been used to improve vegetable oil shortcomings.
