Abstract: | Bio‐diesel has been accepted as a renewable liquid biofuel worldwide. In order to ensure customers' acceptance, standardisation and quality assurance are the key factors to the market introduction of bio‐diesel as a transport fuel. Lubricity of bio‐diesel is an important issue and it is well reported that 1–2% bio‐diesel is sufficient to maintain the lubricity of diesel even of very poor lubricity. However, a wide variation in lubricity performance of bio‐diesel from different vegetable oils and sources has been noticed. In addition, on critical examination, it was noticed that the variation in the lubricating performance of bio‐diesel could be better linked to its residual acidity than to variation in fatty acid composition. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |