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Energy xxx (2010) 15

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Effect of temperature on tribological properties of palm biodiesel

A.S.M.A. Haseeb, S.Y. Sia, M.A. Fazal*, H.H. Masjuki
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Biodiesel, as an alternative fuel is steadily gaining attention to replace petroleum diesel partially or
Received 29 June 2009 completely. The tribological performance of biodiesel is crucial for its application in automobiles. In the
Received in revised form present study, effect of temperature on the tribological performance of palm biodiesel was investigated
30 November 2009
by using four ball wear machine. Tests were conducted at temperatures 30, 45, 60 and 75  C, under
Accepted 1 December 2009
a normal load of 40 kg for 1 h at speed 1200 rpm. For each temperature, the tribological properties of
Available online xxx
petroleum diesel (B0) and three biodiesel blends like B10, B20, B50 were investigated and compared.
During the wear test, frictional torque was recorded on line. Wear scars in tested ball were investigated
Keywords:
Wear by optical microscopy. Results show that friction and wear increase with increasing temperature.
Friction 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Four ball
Lubricity
Biodiesel
Diesel

1. Introduction
Biodiesel, as an alternative fuel derived from vegetable oils or
animal fats, has a number of technical advantages over conven-
tional petroleum diesel. These include reduction of exhaust emis-
sions and biodegradability, higher ash point, reduced toxicity,
derivation from a renewable feedstock, and domestic origin [14].
It can be used in diesel engine with little or no modication [5].
Although these attributes of biodiesel have drawn attention as an
alternative fuel, there exist some signicant drawbacks which have
limited its commercial applications. These include oxidation
instability as a consequence of changing temperature as well as
exposure to air, lower volatility, moisture absorption, reactivity of
unsaturated hydrocarbon chains [68]. These characteristics of
biodiesel are more prone to inuence the lubrication parameters
and wear of various engine components. The impact of these issues
will also depend on different concentration of biodiesel in diesel
blends. Besides, the adaptation of a selected alternative fuel to suit
diesel engine is considered more economically attractive in using it
as blend with diesel fuel than in its pure form [911]. It was
reported that neat biodiesel possesses inherently better lubricity
than conventional diesel [6]. Such effectiveness was also reported
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 60 3 79674448; fax: 60 3 79675317.
E-mail addresses: haseeb@um.edu.my (A.S.M.A. Haseeb), shang1627@yahoo.
com (S.Y. Sia), jewel_mme.buet@yahoo.com (M.A. Fazal), masjuki@um.edu.my (H.H.
Masjuki).
for even lower (<1%) blend levels [1214] or higher (1020%) levels
[15,16]. Masjuki and Maleque [17], found that above 5% palm oil
methyl ester (POME) in lubricant caused oxidation and corrosion.
According to Maleque et al. [18], for 5% POME in lubricant, the total
acid number (TAN) increases at higher temperature. They found
that at higher temperature, oxidation of the lubricants caused
increased wear. These results seem to imply that different
temperature have different impact on lubricity for different
blended fuels.
The present study aims to investigate the effect of temperature
on the lubricity for different palm biodiesel blends. Results
obtained are expected to help in understanding the wear of fuel
system parts where the operating temperature can be as high as
4484  C [19].
2. Experimental
The tribological performance of POME was investigated by four
ball wear machine. The test ball material was chrome alloy steel (E-
52100 with grade 25 extra polish) containing (0.951.10)% carbon
and (1.31.6)% chromium. POME used in this study was provided
from WESCHEM Technology Sdn Bhd and meets EN14214 speci-
cations (Table 1).
The wear and friction characteristics of biodiesel blends were
investigated at four different temperatures viz, 30, 45, 60 and 75  C,
under a normal load of 40 kg for 1 h at speed 1200 rpm. The blends
B10, B20, B50 were made on volume basis and stored in glass
bottles at room temperature. The balls had a diameter of 12.7 mm.

0360-5442/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.energy.2009.12.001

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Table 1
Specication of palm biodiesel used in the present study (meets EN14214 limits).

Test parameters EN14214 limits

Ester content (%mass) 96.5 min
Monoglyceride (%mass) 0.8 max
Diglyceride (%mass) 0.2 max
Triglyceride (%mass) 0.2 max
Free glycerol (%mass) 0.02 max
Acid value (mg KOH/g) 0.5 max
Water content (mg/Kg) 500 max 4
Methanol content (%mass) 0.2 max 1
Na K content (mg/Kg) 5 max
Ca Mg content (mg/Kg) 5 max
Viscosity at 40  C (mm2/s) 5 max

2
Among the four balls, the lower three were held in xed position 5
against each other in a steel cup by means of a clamping ring.
Another ball into the upper chuck was rotating one (Fig. 1). Test fuel
3
was poured in sufcient amount (approx. 10 ml) to cover the balls
to a depth of at least 3 mm. During each test, friction torque was
recorded in order to calculate the friction coefcient (FC). The wear
scar diameters were measured before removing the balls from the
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of four ball wear geometry: 1 rotating gripper for upper
cup. The results reported here are mean wear scar diameter of three
ball, 2 test fuel, 3 cup for griping stationary three balls, 4 rotating single ball, 5
balls. Fuel degradation after wear test was analyzed by Fourier stationary ball.
transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) as per ASTM D7418. In this
method, the absorption between the wave number 1800
1670 cm1 which is caused by the presence of oxidation products
4. Discussion
including aldehydes, ketones and carboxylic acids [20] in length as
a measure of oxidation. The surfaces of worn balls were investi-
This study shows that friction and wear are increased with
gated by using optical microscopy.
increasing temperature. This may be attributed to decreasing of
viscosity with increasing temperature. According to Clark et al. [2],
3. Results viscosity of the fuel decreases with increasing of temperature.
Another possible interpretation given by Masjuki et al. [21] is that
At the very beginning of each test, friction torque recorded on the lower boundary effect and/or breakdown of boundary lubri-
line was unstable with time and few minutes later it came to cation is due to the lower viscosity. According to Sharma et al. [22]
a stable condition. Steady state FC averaged over the last 1000 s was the ester ends of the fatty acid chain are adsorbed to metal
calculated from the recorded torque and is plotted in Fig. 2 as surfaces, thus permitting monolayer lm formation with the
a function of test temperature. It is seen that the steady state FC for hydrocarbon end of fatty acids oriented away from the metal
different fuel increases somewhat with increasing temperature. All surface. The fatty acid chain thus offers a sliding surface that
biodiesel blends have lower FC compared with diesel. Although prevents the direct metal-to-metal contact. The stability of these
there are scatters in the experimental data, higher blends tend to lms depend on operating conditions such as load, temperature,
have lower FC.
It is seen in Fig. 3 that the wear scare diameter increases slightly
with increasing temperature. For each temperature, it decreases as
0.073
a consequence of increasing biodiesel concentration (Fig. 3). All
biodiesel blends yield smaller scar diameter compared with diesel. B0 B10
The wear scar diameter drops drastically for B10 compared with B20 B50
diesel. Further increase in biodiesel concentration causes 0.061
a marginal decrease in diameter.
Steady satate FC

Fig. 4 shows the absorption in FTIR spectra due to the occurrence

of oxidation products such as aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids
etc. [20] in the fuels after the wear tests. It is seen that wear test 0.049
temperature has slight impact on oxidation product whereas
increasing concentration of biodiesel has a signicant impact, at
least up to B20.
The free water content as measured in B50 after the wear tests 0.037
are shown in Fig. 5. It is seen that free water content of the tested
fuel increases with increasing temperature. It may be noted that no
free water was detected in both diesel and biodiesel in the as
0.025
received condition.
30 45 60 75
Fig. 6 shows that the deformation of the surface decreases with
Temperature (C)
increasing the concentration of biodiesel. The worn surfaces at
75  C are comparatively darker than those at 30  C. In all cases, Fig. 2. Variation of steady state FC over last 1000 s for each test with temperature for
mostly abrasive wear seems to be operative. different concentration of biodiesel.

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0.85

B0 B10
B20 B50
0.75
WSD (mm)

0.65

0.55

0.45
30 45 60
Temperature (C)
Fig. 3. Variation of wear scar diameter with temperature for different concentration of
biodiesel.
speed as well as uid viscosity and composition [18]. The present
results suggest that at higher temperatures, these lms seem to be
less stable and thereby cause comparatively higher wear and
friction.
It is found that the lubricity in terms of friction and wear
increases with increasing concentration of biodiesel. According to
Wain et al. [23] biodiesel containing more oxygen can reduce
friction and wear as compared to diesel. This can also be attributed
to the presence of aliphatic fatty acid of general formula
CnH2n1COOH, such as stearic acid in POME which can enhance
lubrication property by controlling friction and wear between
contact surfaces through developing lubrication lms [24]. The
protective lms can reduce thermal energy in sliding contact and
thereby improve lubricity [8]. These lubricity enhancing lms are
most likely carboxylic acid moiety based [25]. In an another
explanation, trace components found in biodiesel fuels including
free fatty acids, monoglycerides, diglycerides are reported to
improve the lubricity of biodiesel [26]. Oxygenated moieties,
7.5
B0 B10
6 Surface morphology showed that layers of debris from the
Oxidation product (A/.1mm)
75
Fig. 5. Water percentage for the fuel B50 obtained after conducting the four ball wear
test at different temperature.
degree of unsaturation, chain length of molecules in biodiesel also
play an important role in increasing lubricity.
From the obtained results it is found that free water content
and oxidation of tested fuel increase with increasing the concen-
tration of biodiesel. Biodiesel is more hygroscopic than petroleum
diesel. Thus it absorbs more moisture. Increased temperature
seems to have increased moisture absorption. According to Tsu-
chiya et al. [27], the oxidation process produces water and free
fatty acids like formic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid, caproic acid
etc. This could have contributed to increased moisture content as
well. The causes of oxidation may be attributed to the exposure of
biodiesel to air at higher temperature. According to Yamane et al.
[20], esters react with oxygen in the air to form a number of
different chemical species, including aldehydes, ketones, carbox-
ylic acids etc. Absorption of these carbonyl groups measured by
FTIR spectrometry shows that oxidation product increases with
increasing the concentration of biodiesel. These oxidation prod-
ucts play important role in increasing viscosity [20]. But at higher
temperature, lubricity enhancing lm loses its stability due to
reduced viscosity and thereby causes increased wear and friction.
Besides, in short term test, increased viscosity through oxidation
possess can provide better lubricity but in case of long term
application, it causes degradation of fuel and is therefore results in
reduced lubricity [27], enhanced corrosion and degradation of
B20 B50
materials [28]. So, it is assumed that effect of oxidation on lubricity
is crucial.

surfaces had been extruded sideways, while akes of debris are

extruded out from the contact interface in the sliding direction of
4.5 the rotating ball. Removal of small particles (<20 mm) with a few
surface features results in abrasive wear [29]. Appearance of the
worn surfaces also seems to present some corrosive product of
black color at higher temperature. This may be explained from the
3
fact that at higher temperature, fuel can be oxidized and thereby
produce different types of corrosive acids and enhance corrosive
wear [27,30]. In another explanation, free fatty acids in biodiesel
1.5
produced by high temperature oxidation improve lubricity [24,26].
At the same time, the existence of oxygen might accelerate the
generation of inorganic oxides like Fe3O4, Fe2O3, which played
0 important roles in the formation of lubrication lm on the rubbing
30 45 60 75
surface [31]. The obtained results demonstrate that oxidative
Tested temperature (C)
products like free fatty acids which increase TAN number have
Fig. 4. Oxidation product rate (absorbance per 0.1 mm path length: A/0.1 mm) of the signicant impact in reducing wear while their corrosive effect is
fuels obtained after conducting the four ball wear test at different temperatures. minor. Wear rate as well as deformation of surface at each

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Fig. 6. Photograph (500) by optical microscope showing the appearance of the wear scar of tested steel ball in B0 at (a) 30  C, (b) 75  C; B20 at (c) 30  C (d) 75  C; B50 (e) 30  C, (f)
75  C.

temperature decreases with increasing of biodiesel concentration. 3. Deformation of the worn surface increases with increasing
This implies that biodiesel or its blend provide better lubricity even temperature. On the other hand, it decreases with increasing
at higher temperature. biodiesel concentration.
4. At higher test temperature, biodiesel gets oxidized and free
5. Conclusions water content is increased.

The following conclusions are drawn from this study: Acknowledgement

1. Lubricity of palm biodiesel in terms of friction and wear is The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial support
decreased with increasing temperature. provided by the Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation
2. Lubricity increases as a consequence of increasing biodiesel (MOSTI) under the science Fund by Grant No: 03-02-03-SF3073 and
concentration. by the Institute of Research Management and Consultancy,

Please cite this article in press as: Haseeb ASMA, et al., Effect of temperature on tribological properties of palm biodiesel, Energy (2010),
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University of Malaya (UM) under the IPPP (Institut Pengurusan
Penyelidikan dan Perundingan) Fund Project No.: PS093/2008B.
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