Castor Oil-Based Nanolubricants: An Overview

Abstract

Vegetable oils are very effective, economic and appealing option as compared to conventional lubricants due to their environment-friendly nature, sustainable behaviour and biodegradability. Castor oil, one of the promising non-edible vegetable oils with nanoparticle additives has the potential to serve as base lubricating oil. The benefit of using nanoparticles in base oils is their small size, which works as a roller on contacting surfaces and results in reducing the wear and friction more efficiently. The present review paper has been structured as follows. The first part of this technical article is designed to give a brief about vegetable oils as a lubricant with special reference to castor oil. The second part of the review paper describes the effects of nanoparticles especially molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) in different lubricating oils, especially in castor oil. Finally, the applications of nanolubricants and their future prospects are also discussed.