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Environmentally friendly vegetable oil lubricant

08.11.2012

In October, the Fraunhofer Center for the Study of Chemical Biotechnological Processes (CBP, Leuna) launched a pilot plant for the batch production of epoxides made from locally produced vegetable oil. Epoxides are chemical intermediates that are essential for the production of lubricating oils, surfactants and emulsifiers.

Until now, epoxides have been extracted mainly from petroleum, but researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute have developed a new chemical-enzymatic process that allows the production of epoxides from vegetable oils. At the same time, the process proceeds at lower temperatures and more environmentally friendly conditions, compared to the traditional "petroleum" method. In addition, mustard oils, elderberry seeds, Abyssinian cabbage and common blackhead oil can be used as raw materials. Some of these oils are by-products of the food industry and are not consumed.

The new technology makes it possible to turn plant raw materials into a useful product by chemical-enzymatic epoxidation with the help of the lipase enzyme. The main advantage of the new technology is that the enzyme is easier and more efficient to use: unlike many other chemical reactions, enzymes operate at moderate temperatures, at neutral pH values and at normal pressure. In this case, enzymes carry out epoxidation only in certain regions of the molecules, that is, without side reactions.

The new pilot plant will be able to produce batches of epoxides not 14 grams, as in the laboratory, but 70 kg each, which will make it easier and more thorough to test the new technology and determine its prospects for industrial production.

The use of vegetable raw materials to replace oil is growing every year, although so far the share of raw materials derived from oil is much larger. So, in 2009, about 14 million tons of vegetable oil and about 400 million tons of mineral oil were used for the production of chemical and technical products.

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