THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT NANOPARTICLES IN PALM OIL OLEIN AS SOLID ADDITIVES

Palm oil olein and palm oil ester is well-known potential candidate in plant-based oil to replace the conventional mineral oil. Harvested all year round, the advantages and benefits initiate the palm oil to be used in varieties of application. In this paper, palm oil olein was tested on its capability as a lubricant to replace the mineral oil. To enrich the performance of this oil, different types of nanoparticles additives were added. Previous studies proved that by adding small size of additives into lubricating oil can lessen the friction and improve anti-wear properties. The adjustment of the lubricating oil with nanoparticle additives will reduce the friction between two contact surfaces and produce less heat. In his study, three type material of solid additives namely nanoclay and carbon nanotubes were used. Four ball tester following ASTM D4072-94 was conducted to determine the optimum concentration of each additives and its tribological properties under boundary lubrication (metal to metal contact). Result obtained shows that the addition of 0.04 wt% of carbon nanotubes recorded the lowest coefficient of friction with a 10.8% improvement compared to the pure palm oil. The additive also contributed to better wear scar diameters and possessed good anti-wear properties for palm oil. This thus shows the significant potential of carbon nanotubes as the wear preventive additive for palm oil olein. It is also discovered that 0.04 wt% of nanoclays additive is the optimum concentration of the mixture with coefficient of friction reduced 22.16% compared to mineral oil.