enhancing jatropha curcas seed oil-based biolubricants with metal oxide additives: synthesis, characterization, and performance evaluation

Non-edible vegetable oils have garnered significant research attention in recent years due to their enhanced tri-bological characteristics as biolubricants. jatropha curcas oil, in particular, shows promising potential as a feedstock for lubricant production. in this study, jatropha biolubricant was synthesized through a two-step transesterification process: first converting jatropha seed oil to methyl ester and then further transesterifying the methyl ester with sodium methoxide in the presence of ethylene glycol. the synthesis achieved a yield of 83.21-90% of jatropha biolubricant using sodium methoxide as the catalyst. to enhance its performance, the synthesized biolubricant was blended with copper oxide (cuo) and zinc oxide (zno) as metal additives. viscosity tests revealed that the blended biolubricant at 1 wt% additive concentration exhibited optimal viscosity characteristics: 52.952 cst at 40 ℃ and 8.767 cst at 100 ℃, compared to 31.58 cst and 6.547 cst, respectively, for the biolubricant without additives. furthermore, blended biolubricant exhibited improved thermal degradation resistance and enhanced oxidative stability across different additive concentrations. key lubricating properties such as pour point (10 ℃), viscosity at 40 ℃ (52.951 cst), viscosity at 100 ℃ (8.767 cst), and viscosity index (165.54) were analysed and found comparable to sae 40 petroleum lubricants and other plant-based biolubricants.