On the wear protection ability of three eco-friendly base lubricants: first results from wear debris analysis

im of this work was to propose a method to investigate wear protection attitude of three eco-friendly lubricants; Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (RME), Hydrotreated Vegetable oil (HVO) from raw rapeseed oil and raw Jatropha Curcas L. oil (JCL) were investigated. These base oils, after running in ball on disk tribometer under a wide range of operating conditions, were subjected to an analysis of wear debris content by using a LaserNet Fines-C. The appa- ratus operates through laser imaging techniques and image processing to identify the mor- phology, production rate, and the severity of the wear, measuring the distribution of the size, rate of progression, and the characteristics of the wear debris that are strictly connected with wear type. In the RME oil it was found a high number of fatigue wear particles which were also the largest detected. The HVO oil has been distinguished by the almost complete absence of fibers in it, whereas it was detected a high number of particle fatigue and non-metallic par- ticle. The JCL oil presented a higher number of fibers, over that of non-metallic particle.