TY - JOUR
T1 - Microalgae Biomass as a New Potential Source of Sustainable Green Lubricants
AU - Farfan-Cabrera, Leonardo I.
AU - Franco-Morgado, Mariana
AU - González-Sánchez, Armando
AU - Pérez-González, José
AU - Marín-Santibáñez, Benjamín M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - Lubricants are materials able to reduce friction and/or wear of any type of moving surfaces facilitating smooth operations, maintaining reliable machine functions, and reducing risks of failures while contributing to energy savings. At present, most worldwide used lubricants are derived from crude oil. However, production, usage and disposal of these lubricants have significant impact on environment and health. Hence, there is a growing pressure to reduce demand of this sort of lubricants, which has fostered development and use of green lubricants, as vegetable oil-based lubricants (biolubricants). Despite the ecological benefits of producing/using biolubricants, availability of the required raw materials and agricultural land to create a reliable chain supply is still far from being established. Recently, biomass from some microalgae species has attracted attention due to their capacity to produce high-value lipids/oils for potential lubricants production. Thus, this multidisciplinary work reviews the main chemical-physical characteristics of lubricants and the main attempts and progress on microalgae biomass production for developing oils with pertinent lubricating properties. In addition, potential microalgae strains and chemical modifications to their oils to produce lubricants for different industrial applications are identified. Finally, a guide for microalgae oil selection based on its chemical composition for specific lubricant applications is provided.
AB - Lubricants are materials able to reduce friction and/or wear of any type of moving surfaces facilitating smooth operations, maintaining reliable machine functions, and reducing risks of failures while contributing to energy savings. At present, most worldwide used lubricants are derived from crude oil. However, production, usage and disposal of these lubricants have significant impact on environment and health. Hence, there is a growing pressure to reduce demand of this sort of lubricants, which has fostered development and use of green lubricants, as vegetable oil-based lubricants (biolubricants). Despite the ecological benefits of producing/using biolubricants, availability of the required raw materials and agricultural land to create a reliable chain supply is still far from being established. Recently, biomass from some microalgae species has attracted attention due to their capacity to produce high-value lipids/oils for potential lubricants production. Thus, this multidisciplinary work reviews the main chemical-physical characteristics of lubricants and the main attempts and progress on microalgae biomass production for developing oils with pertinent lubricating properties. In addition, potential microalgae strains and chemical modifications to their oils to produce lubricants for different industrial applications are identified. Finally, a guide for microalgae oil selection based on its chemical composition for specific lubricant applications is provided.
KW - Biolubricants
KW - Green lubricants
KW - Lipids
KW - Lubrication
KW - Microalgae biomass
KW - Sustainability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124602267&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/molecules27041205
DO - 10.3390/molecules27041205
M3 - Artículo de revisión
C2 - 35208995
AN - SCOPUS:85124602267
SN - 1420-3049
VL - 27
JO - Molecules
JF - Molecules
IS - 4
M1 - 1205
ER -