PRELIMINARY STUDY ON THE PROSPECTS OF USING OF CASTOR OIL (Ricinus communis L.) AS AN ALTERNATIVE AUTOMOBILE HYDRAULIC FLUID

Abstract

 Castor oil (Ricinus communis L.) has been extracted from castor seeds obtained from its plants; grown along the bank of Meme River, Lokoja andthe waterwaysin phase II linking to the River in Lokoja, Kogi state,Nigeria, employing the traditional method of extraction of vegetable oils without chemical additives. The extracted oil appears yellowish in color and it is highly viscous with reasonable yield. Our choice is tied to the fact that castor seed is a renewable resource and has favourable outcome on the environment. In this study, we present the following preliminary results obtained from extraction and physical characterization which includes the extracted oil yield, density, specific gravity, functional groups, dynamic viscosity and activation energy during heat transfer through the extracted castor oil. The percentage yield was found to be 22.3% and the corresponding density and the specific gravity are 964.4kg/m3 and 0.964 respectively. The moisture content of the extracted castor oil characterized using a standard digital Moisture Analyzer (MA 110) was found to be 0.62%,which is very lowand in conformity with the standard stipulated for hydraulic fluids. The functional groups obtained using Fourier Transform Infra-red spectrophotometer (Agilent Technologies) is in conformity withthe standardfunctional groups for castoroil which includes mainly the alcohol, ester, isothiocyanate, alkane, alkene, amine and carboxylic acid. The dynamic viscosity of the extracted castor oil determined o at 40 C using a standard digital Viscometer (RVDV-1) was found to be 376 Pa.s and the corresponding kinematic viscosity is . The activation energy during heat transfer through the extracted castor oil was found to be 0.88eV