The Effect of Temperature on the Tribological Behavior of RBD Palm Stearin

The wide use of petroleum-based oils raises concerns with regard to pollution, and the rising of awareness of greenhouse gases has created a demand for the use of environmentally friendly and biodegradable lubricants for industrial applications. Vegetable oils are one of the bio-oils that have been promoted as a replacement for petroleum products, in part due to their environmentally friendly characteristics; they are nontoxic, biodegradable, and easy to dispose of. Many researchers have performed studies on sunflower oil, corn oil, and soy oil, but few have studied palm oil as a lubricant. Palm oil produced in a high-throughput manner could fulfill the demand for bio-based lubricants. In this study, the influence of temperature on friction and wear performance for refined, bleached, and deodorized (RBD) palm stearin and additive-free paraffinic mineral oil is presented. The experiments were conducted using a four-ball tribotester. Test temperatures of 55, 65, 75, and 85°C were used. The sliding speeds were set to 1,200 rpm. Experiments were run for 1 h under a 392.4 N load. The results of RBD palm stearin were compared with those of paraffinic mineral oil. The experimental results showed that the RBD palm stearin had better performance compared to paraffinic mineral oil in terms of reducing frictional constraints.