Lubricants from vegetable oil

Oil-independence is the dream of many countries that lack raw materials. Nevertheless, black gold still retains its dominant role as a power source, and also serves as a basic material for the chemical industry. In order to change this, researchers started the ''Integrated BioProduction'' project.

At the Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes CBP in Leuna, the pilot plant-scale production of epoxides, made from domestic vegetable oils, begins this month. The intermediate chemical products support the production of lubricants, surfactants and emulsifiers.

Epoxides are highly reactive organic compounds comprised of a triple ring with two carbon atoms and one oxygen atom. Among other things, the chemicals industry uses them for the production of lubricants for vehicles and engines, as well as surfactants and emulsifiers for detergents and cleansers. Until now, epoxides have been based primarily on source materials procured from petroleum.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB have engineered a chemical-enzymatic process that now enables vegetable oil-based production, at lower temperatures and under more environmentally-friendly conditions.

The Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes CBP in Leuna has made this technology ready for industrial application. Starting October 2012, the findings obtained in the laboratory will be scaled up to an even larger volume. Quantities of up to 100 litres will be possible at the new centre.

That corresponds to a 70 kilogram-batch of epoxides. In the laboratory this reaction yielded batches only in the grams range. The 14 partners in the ''Integrated BioProduction'' project will be working until April 2014 on engineering a process for procuring epoxides, made from domestic vegetable oils, for industry use.
Using by-products from the food industry