Synthesis and Characterization of Custard Apple seed oil Bio-lubricant

World crude oil reserves are limited; its prices are going up and out of control. Their environmental issues created a big problem for emerging generations. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the possibility of using automotive lubricants with vegetable base oil . Vegetable oils have many of the desirable properties of lubricants such as good contact lubrication, high viscosity index, renewal capacity, degradability and high flash point. The direct application of vegetable oil as a vehicle lubricant is less favourable due to its poor thermo oxidative stability; cold flow behaviour and poor anti wear characteristics. The present research detailed in this document refers to chemical modification of custard apple seed oil through the process of epoxidation, hydroxylation and esterification to improve its thermo oxidative stability, the behaviour of cold flow and antiwear characteristics. The formation of epoxide and hydroxyl group was confirmed by infrared spectral analysis by Fourier transform infrared radiation. The present work also focussed on the problem of friction and wear characteristics of chemically modified custard apple seed oil bio lubricant and commercial synthetic lubricant (SAE20W40) both contaminated by diesel using a four ball tribometer under same operating conditions. The chemically modified custard apple seed oil shows good oxidative stability, better cold flow behaviour and improved performance in terms of frictional force and coefficient of friction.