Evaluation of physicochemical, tribological and oxidative stability properties of chemically modified rice bran and karanja oils as viable lubricant base stocks for industrial applications

The lubricating properties of the two vegetable oils with distinct free fatty acid content were studied in the work i.e., Rice bran oil (RBO) with low free fatty acids and Karanja oil (KO) with high free fatty acids. The main aim of the present work is to improve the oxidative stability of RBO and KO, using the transesterification and epoxidation method. The physicochemical, tribological, and oxidative stability of pure and modified oils were evaluated as per standards. The study revealed the effectiveness of epoxidation over the transesterification process on the selected oils.