Chemical modification of camelina oil based unsaturated fatty acid for renewable biolubricant base stock

Abstract

A green and eco-friendly method for preparation of oleochemicals from Camelina oil was developed for possible application for bio-lubricant basestocks, The steps involved are consisting of epoxidation of Camelina oil based fatty acid followed by further branching with wide range of alcohol such as 2-propanol, n-butanol, isoamyl alcohol and 2-ethylhexanol. These products were evaluated with physico-chemical properties such as acid value, oxirane oxygen content (OOC), hydroxyl value, low temperature properties, viscosity at 40 and 100 °C, viscosity index and characterized by FTIR, 1H NMR. The appearance of peak at 824 cm-1 in the FTIR spectra was due to the formation of epoxy group and broad peak appeared at 3500-3300 cm-1 is for hydrogen bonded O-H stretching vibration of hydroxy group. The 1H NMR spectra showed a signal at 2.9-3.2 ppm region indicated CH-proton attached to the oxygen atom of the both epoxy group for epoxidized product, peaks for newly formed secondary alcohols emerged at 4.25-3.35 in alkoxy derivatives. The Camelina based synthetic product may find application in biolubricants base stock.