Evaluation of Date Palm Fruit Syrup as a Potential Environmental Friendly Lubricant

The pursuit of developing environmental friendly lubrication strategies led to the development of green lubricants. Researchers have explored different strategies such as adding environmental friendly nano-fillers as additives to the base oil on one hand and develop water based lubrication with extracts from natural resources, natural oils such as vegetable oils on the other, for reducing coefficient of friction and wear in tribological components. In this study we plan to take the second approach by developing water based environmental friendly lubricant by adding date palm fruit extract to it. Date palm is one of the most cultivated palms mostly found in the Middle Eastern regions of the world. Whole dates besides being consumed as a fruit, are also used to prepare a wide range of different products such as date juice concentrates, spread, syrup, and liquid sugar. The date palm fruits besides being rich in nutritional values also have a good amount of fatty acids such as oleic acid, palmitic acid and lionelic acids which have excellent anti wear and lubricating properties making it a potentially good candidate to be used as an environmental friendly lubricant. Hence, the present research proposal focuses on investigating the lubricating properties of the date palm fruit syrup in different concentrations in water as a base in protecting the metallic components from wear and tear and to tap its potential of becoming a possible green lubricant.