Scientific Reports (Jul 2022)

Microwave-assisted synthesis of trimethylolpropane triester (bio-lubricant) from camelina oil

  • Kian Rokni,
  • Mostafa Mostafaei,
  • Masoud Dehghani-Soufi,
  • Danial Kahrizi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16209-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Abstract Vegetable oils, whose hydrocarbon structure is very similar to that of petroleum products, are ideal renewable and sustainable alternatives to petroleum lubricants. Bio-lubricants are commonly synthesized by modifying the chemical structure of vegetable oils. In this study, microwave irradiation was applied to intensify the mass-transfer-limited transesterification reaction to produce trimethylolpropane triester (bio-lubricant) from camelina oil as a promising local energy crop. A rotatable RSM-BBD method was applied to find the optimal levels of experimental factors, namely reaction time (67.8 min), the catalyst concentration (1.4 wt%) and the molar ratio (3.5). In these optimal levels, the reaction yield of 94.3% was obtained with desirability of 0.975. The quadratic statistical model with a determination coefficient of 97.97%, a standard deviation of 0.91 and a variation coefficient of 1% was suggested as the most appropriate model by Design-Expert software. Finally, the physicochemical properties of the purified product were in accordance with the requirements of the ISO-VG22 base oil standard.