Native Crambe abyssinica oil and its derivatives as renewable lubricants: an approach to improve its quality by chemical and biotechnological processes

Crambe abyssinica oil contains more than 55% of erucic acid. The high content of this unsaturated long chain fatty acid seems to be very interesting for some industrial applications, although its high di-and tri-unsaturated fatty acid content (more than 13%) negatively affects its resistance to the oxidative processes. This study describes a characterisation of crambe oil extracted by screw press, solvent extraction and after the refining process. This paper also reports the results regarding the synthesis of some triglycerides with different oleic/erucic acid ratio to evaluate their main technological characteristics (viz. viscosity, cold and oxidative stability, pour point). These properties appeared to be greatly improved and so we propose the possibility of modifying the triglyceride composition of crambe oil by biotechnology. Therefore, a mild technique such as the use of lipolytic enzymes, should improve the quality of crambe oil for all those industrial uses which require a stronger resistance to high oxidative conditions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.