Mechanical Properties of Palm Kernel Oil-Copper Oxide Nanolubricant

Abstract

Since the last decade, vegetable oil has received tremendous attention as an alternative lubricant because of worsening state of environmental health and finite resources of mineral oil. However, the use of vegetable oil is restricted due to the poor low temperature fluidity and thermal-oxidative stability. These drawbacks can be enhanced by adding additive into the solution of vegetable oil. Thus, objective of this research is to investigate the influence of adding nanoparticle additive on tribological performance of palm kernel oil. The type of nanoparticle used throughout this study is copper oxide, which serves as anti-wear additive. Palm kernel oil (PKO), palm kernel oil-copper oxide nanoparticle (PKO-CuO), mineral oil (SAE-40), synthetic oil (SAE15W-50) are used as lubricant. Tribological properties if the used lubricants are evaluated using fourball tribotester under standard load and extreme pressure tests. Experimental results showed that the presence of nanoparticles in natural palm kernel oil improved tribological performances of friction and wear. The friction coefficient and wear scar diameter are reduced by approximately 5.0% and 3.5% respectively. The highest enhancement in friction coefficient value of ~20% was obtained under extreme pressure condition. Addition of nanoparticle also is found to improve load carrying capacity of PKO by 15%.